


Always and Forever

by WingedLadyColette



Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Caroline Forbes Goes to New Orleans, F/M, Mystic Falls (Vampire Diaries), New Orleans, Protective Siblings, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingedLadyColette/pseuds/WingedLadyColette
Summary: Always and Forever is put to the test when the Mikaelson siblings all gather together once more to throw the balance of nature into disarray when the Petrova Doppelganger reappears once again in a little Virginia town of Mystic Falls. But that's not the only thing that catches the big bad wolf's attention.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Comments: 100
Kudos: 181





	1. The Hybrid's Tale

Author's note: Hello, my lovelies! I'm back with another story! I know, I'm sorry! A new friend approached me with this idea and I couldn't help but agree! The beginning is just a brief history of the Mikaelson siblings. I hope you guys enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it! I had to make a few changes to this chapter to further the story so hopefully, you guys still like it! Enjoy!

Commissioned and dedicated to: Millennion

Always and forever.

It was the saying of their family for as long as any of them remember. It was something that their mother would always say to them as little kids and all throughout their lives. Something that they took to saying to one another when they were young and even as they all grew into adults. Always and forever was so much more than the literal meaning. It meant 'I love you'. It meant 'I will always be there for you'. It meant 'Even when things seem terrible and confusing and painful now, it will get better'. It meant 'No matter where you go, or what you do, you are never truly alone'. It meant everything.

Always and forever, more than just words, was a promise etched into their very beings. If they had nothing else, and no one else, they would always have each other.

When little Henrik was scared of the dark, of the monsters that lurked within it, he could cuddle up to any of his siblings and they would never think lowly of him. When Rebekah got her heart broken by one of the village boys, all of her brothers would ban together to "scare the crap out of him", as they said to her. When Elijah was too shy to speak to beautiful Tatia and his brothers would jeer at him in good fun. When Kol, always up to no good, needed to hide away from the local men that he angered and his siblings claimed not to have seen him all day long, all the while concealing his whereabouts until it was safe for him to reappear. When Finn was jealous of Esther's attention offered to all the other children, mysteriously his siblings would vanish for the day to give him time with her. When Mikael was too angry, too cruel to Klaus, his brothers and sister would rush to the rescue. Rebekah even threatened to kill Mikael once before he backed off, walking away, disgusted, and she ran to Niklaus's side, holding his beaten and broken body close as he tried hard to hide the shaking of his body and his soft cries. His brothers placing themselves between the two siblings and the rest of the world to protect their wounded brother.

It was the mantra that they would whisper to themselves or each other in the quiet of the night or in moments of solace away from those that wouldn't understand. It was a safeguard, a lifeline, a promise. They were safe so long as they had always and forever. They could make it through everything. No matter how big or small. If one didn't have enough strength, together they all would.

Always and forever was the day Henrik died. Was Klaus screaming and crying and throwing himself around, begging for their mother to save his brother and his family to punish him for what he did. Always and forever was them all gathering around and Rebekah hugging him tight to her chest, crying softly as she whispered how much she loved him, and that it would 'be okay' when decidedly it never would be again. Little did they know at that very moment it was the beginning of the end of everything that they once knew. They would try their best and make the most of it, but their lives were forever changed, and while it was in part Klaus's fault that it was so, none of his siblings ever said it. Not even in rage did outcast Finn or sardonic Kol ever breathe a word of the hurt that lie in their heart, because always and forever meant that even though it hurt, they loved each other more than that.

In their hearts, Henrik would always stay, as always and forever didn't die with him.

Not even when they died did always and forever vanish. In fact, it grew stronger as they did. Because while they were family and they loved each other, and the people of their village, after having become vampires, they have never been more alone. The people they knew their whole lives, loved and lived and fought beside since they were children, turned away from them. Feared and hated them for what they became, even if they had no say in it. Even if the horrible new reality they were forced to live through wasn't their choice but thrust upon them by their own parents.

It was then that the sons and daughter of Mikael and Esther had no one else in the world, except for each other. Even their father, a vampire as they were, hated them for what they became. And their mother, who made them into such creatures without even asking them if immortality was what they wanted, stared after them both in abject horror and disgust for everything that they had become was against the very laws of nature that she, as a witch, had vowed to uphold.

Along with their bodies, their souls, the meaning of always and forever transcended. Vampirism awakened a side of them that changed their perceptions of everything over the course of their lives. The killing, the feeding, the strength, the rage, it awakened something beyond the existence they once lived. Always and forever became a tether to their humanity.

Despite their arguing and fighting, no matter what they said or did, at the end of the day, no matter what, they would have each other. Always and forever.

Learning that Niklaus was not their father's son, but the son of the pack leader of their werewolf neighbors was hard for all of them for a time. None of Mikael's true children blamed their brother for not being their father's son - although that didn't mean that they wouldn't throw the term bastard at him when it suited them but never for its true meaning - but Mikael did. The animosity and hatred Mikael always had for Niklaus had suddenly all made sense to him. And Mikael felt justified in slaying both Niklaus's true father and the entirety of his pack. Klaus's siblings never blamed him for not being Mikael's, but Mikael did.

Using Esther's magic once more, Mikael forced Esther to seal up Niklaus's werewolf side and strike the final nail in the coffin. Years of physical and emotional abuse coupled with cruelty beyond measure in the murder of his father, and those of his pack, as well as sealing away a piece of himself was enough to solidify the hatred and resentment of not only Niklaus but all of his siblings. And Esther, she who was the cause of all of this, agreed to seal Niklaus's power because she knew that it would help, in a way, satiate some of Mikael's anger, but also prevent from further upsetting nature. It was her fault, her doing, yet Niklaus was being blamed for it, being blamed for his mother's own choices.

Niklaus cried the night they took his werewolf side from him. He didn't even cry when he lost his life. Losing the piece of himself, the connection perhaps to a father that may have been able to love him - had he not also lost his life, but for good unlike Niklaus - was too much to bear.

Somehow, a form of solace, which usually came from Rebekah, his favorite sibling, or Elijah, his favorite brother, instead came from the one sibling Niklaus always secretly thought hated him, even if only a little. It came from Finn.

Finn, who always thrived under Esther's love and attention, was the one that came to him long after his parents had left him crying in the dirt and Elijah ran off, horrified at what he'd done in helping his father hold his brother steady as Esther stole Niklaus's only tangible connection left to his father away. Finn, who loved Esther more than any of them, perhaps, knelt to Niklaus's side, placing a large, warm hand on his shoulder and said, so softly sometimes Niklaus, when he thinks back on it, figured he must have misheard him through his sobs, or simply imagined it, "They shouldn't have done that. She shouldn't have done that."

Always and forever was them against the world. Even their own parents.

Niklaus never forgave either Mikael or Esther for what they did. Once their village was destroyed, their mother dead and their father missing, the siblings knew they could no longer stay in the place that three of them were born in, but all of them were raised. The place where their baby brother laid to rest. This place was no longer their home. No one wanted them there, and nothing that they wanted remained. They knew it wasn't the end as the threat of Mikael and his white oak stake loomed over them as they ran from their home, the dark reality of their mother's death kept hidden in Klaus's heart. So they promised to stay together before leaving the village that raised them and the people that once loved them, to protect and love one another, always and forever, because no one else ever truly will.

Through the centuries they grew and learned more about themselves. Finn, Elijah, Niklaus, Kol, and Rebekah. They learned of ways to truly live with their vampirism - their hunger. Learned to master their strength and speed. They learned how to use their compulsion and that no normal means could kill them any longer. With the help of Lucien, Aurora, and Tristan, they also learned of their ability to use their blood both for healing and for making more vampires, creating the sirelines of Niklaus, Elijah, and Rebekah. And also draw Mikael away from their trail for a time.

They got a taste for the life of luxury. They got to live as prominent wealthy figures that they weren't going to ever be ready to return to their humble roots. Charisma and compulsion were able to get them far in their lives.

Always and forever meant that they would always come first. They were what mattered. Their wants, their desires. Always and forever fed into their selfishness when it came to everything but each other. No, it held stronger than ever the more they secluded themselves - sometimes physically, mostly emotionally - from everyone else in the world. They were the only ones that they could really trust, anyway.

They managed to grow in infamy amongst the supernatural species of the world. The whispers of the Original Vampires. The children of Esther and Mikael didn't pay much heed to their words, so long as no one was outwardly pointing in their direction, for fear of Mikael turning up to follow them. Despite their travels and the games, the siblings played over the years, they always made sure to keep an eye on Mikael. Well, more like keeping an ear out. Unfortunately, it's hard to really pin Mikael down until he's right on top of them.

Thankfully Lucien, Aurora, and Tristan have been keeping him busy for them for a long time. So at least they have that going for them.

Not only did those three help to keep Mikael preoccupied, but the other vampires that the siblings sired did as well. And the werewolves. Yes, Mikael held a particular disdain for anything and everything supernatural, it seemed. Witches seemed to be the only thing that narrowly avoided his wrath, and that's only barely. And not always. Mikael... as fickle and cruel as always.

Mikael's hatred for the werewolves - specifically Niklaus's father clan, but really all wolves - gave birth to the feud between the vampires and the werewolves that would last for a thousand years. And while Klaus didn't have access to his werewolf nature, he still had some of the perks that came with it. For instance, he was completely immune to werewolf bites, which would temporarily weaken his siblings and definitely kill other vampires, as they came to learn.

But the brotherhood of five taught Klaus of his affinity for silver when the brotherhood tried to dagger all of Klaus's siblings, and Klaus was the only one who woke up from it on his own. Needless to say, while Klaus was never a fan of any of Rebekah's attempts at love, he took a particularly keen enjoyment in killing Alexander, who was Rebekah's fiance at the time. While Rebekah was heartbroken, despite the fact that he had basically tried to kill her, or at least seal her away for the rest of eternity, Klaus was the one who ultimately lived to regret it.

Oh, how Klaus and his siblings loath the Hunter's curse. Witches curses in general, to be honest.

The next fifty-two years, four months, and nine days was absolute agony. All Klaus wanted to do was kill himself, haunted by the things he saw and heard. It was a terrible, tortured existence and Klaus tried everything he could think of to end his life - to no avail. His siblings remained at his side, doing everything they could to try and ease his pain and try to dissuade him from killing himself. All for always and forever.

And then fifty-two years, four months, and nine days after Klaus killed all of the Brotherhood of the Five it finally - abruptly came to an end. For no rhyme or reason.

Afterward, their lives regain a semblance of normalcy. They grew their influence, their power to spread across the world. Elijah made his Strix, Kol learned from the witches, and Klaus made allies and enemies aplenty. Klaus even found Katerina Petrova - or had she, unfortunately for her, found him - wearing the face belonging once to beautiful Tatia from their home so long ago. Hard pressed to temped fate, Klaus wanted to perform the ritual to awaken his werewolf side and finally feel complete.

Elijah, dear sweet honorable, love-struck Elijah, managed to carefully persuade his brother into allowing Katherine to live. Klaus was apprehensions, not wanting to risk messing up the ritual and possibly losing his chance to awaken his other half. But this was Elijah, his favorite brother, who has never asked him for anything, asks now for this girl's life. A girl so similar in appearance but so different in attitude to Elijah's first crush in beautiful Tatia.

Klaus gave in to a soft, "Please, brother," and brown eyes so focused and so intense. It meant a lot to Elijah, and he knew he was asking a lot in return from Klaus, and his eyes promised that it would all work out. And Klaus wanted desperately to believe in his favorite brother. So he, very reluctantly, agreed.

The following full moon brought the death of a vampire, a werewolf, and the pseudo death of the Petrova Doppelganger.

The horrible, painful agony of his first transformation wasn't alone. He was so fortunate that his first time transforming into his true form, he was able to curl up into a little ball on Rebekah's lap as he works his way through it with his siblings around him, ready to run away once he was finished with his change.

But he wasn't a wild, ravenous animal afterward. He was still Klaus. A werewolf Klaus. A Klaus that while disoriented and confused, recognized his siblings. He was shaky, and weary as a newly-turned werewolf surrounded by vampires – the natural enemy – but his nose bumped into Rebekah's cheek in his haste to back away from her, he recognized her scent. His sister.

It took a moment for werewolf-brained Klaus was pushed out of the way for more cognitive, newly-awakened Hybrid Klaus to recognize his beautiful sister staring back at him with wide blue eyes, ready to shove him away if he was to attack, but happy tears shining in her eyes. Her lips curve up a bit when he doesn't just attack and mouths, "I love you, Nik."

His ears sharpened and then he leaned forward, licking her cheek lovingly as his favorite sibling, before doing what he needed to. He turned, spared a long look at all of his siblings, making eye contact with all of them before running into the forest, relishing in the joy of finally being free. Finally being his true self.

Three days running the wild before he was ready to return to his life with his siblings.

In that time, thankful that Elijah saved her life, Katherine asked him for one thing in return for not running away. She didn't want to feel weak and helpless anymore. She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be a vampire.

Klaus returned and together, the two spoke with him. She gave Klaus her blood, and now she asks for the same in return. A bargin well struck. Klaus agreed and gave Katherine his blood.

That night Katerina Petrova died, and Katherine Pierce was born. But she was never one to be held down for long. When all was said and done, she kissed Elijah goodbye and vowed to see him again once she was more in control. She didn't want anyone to be part of the growing pains of being a vampire – especially not Elijah.

It was only after she was gone that Klaus learned about his ability to make hybrids. After almost a year of trying to figure out why it wasn't working – and trying to keep from blaming it on Katherine being alive to a minimum for Elijah's sake. Klaus had a witch reach out to his mother and learned the truth.

He needed human doppelganger blood.

Klaus was angry for a time, wanting to blame anyone and everyone – especially Katherine and Elijah – but then he came to the realization with Finn of all people being the voice of reason with a very calm, very pointed, "You didn't know, Klaus, how could they?"

And he was right.

No matter how angry he was at the time and for how long, Klaus finally, finally let it go. He awakened his werewolf side, and ultimately, that was what he wanted. The fact that fate managed to steal yet another thing out from under him was aggravating, to say the least, but he decided, with a bit of a yelling match with Elijah that helped, that he was more happy about being a Hybrid than he was angry about not being able to make Hybrids other than his own.

And like all things, they were able to move on from this.

Always and forever didn't mean the siblings were immune to their petty squabbles. No matter how much love and loyalty there was among siblings, it is inevitable that they would get on each other's nerves. Their squabbles destroyed towns and covens and the way of life for those around them. It also leads to the devious idea of Klaus's to put his siblings into their "time out".

Those pesky daggers came in handy to steal years from Klaus's siblings. It was a source of ire between them. A point of friction.

But they would all find their peace once more, at some point, after reconciliation was achieved. Always and forever made it hard to stay mad for too long.

After so many centuries running the world, jumping from one continent to another, running from Mikael, running to their desires, seeing the world, the siblings, for the first time since the home they ran from so long ago, found a place all of them truly liked. A little hamlet that they helped grow into the wonderful city of New Orleans. A place where all supernatural could live together, peacefully. Their only little slice of paradise. Something to be proud of. Somewhere to finally, finally call home. Something all of them had been searching for, even if they had never said it aloud.

Throughout the years, the siblings, while running from Mikael, would split up, agreeing to meet somewhere at a specific time once one sibling or one group of siblings managed to shake Mikael from their trail. Always running. Always hiding. Always afraid. Always and forever.

While it became obvious to the siblings not so long after they initially left the village that raised them, it still terrified Klaus whenever Mikael drew near, as he was always the one that Mikael sought. He would kill all of his children, end the blight that they bring to the world, but Klaus was the one that he always hunted for the most rigorously.

Klaus's life was a waking nightmare, being hounded by the man who raised him and hated him all his life, with moments of peace sprinkled in between. Not a day went by that Klaus wasn't afraid. He learned to hide it well, the fear, the paranoia, but not always, and not completely to his siblings. They could see right through him and his anxiety.

New Orleans became special. It became something that they could all build together. Something that was wholly and entirely their own. They could build it from the ground up, govern it, and live peacefully there. It could be their new home. Somewhere for them to finally belong, and live together in peace. Or in as much peace as the siblings could manage while being together. But it was still theirs and they could be happy there. Always and forever.

And for a time, they were. Every night was a party. They were able to build bonds with the werewolves, the vampires, and the witches. They were able to have peace and live their lives comfortably. The scuffles, the backstabbing, and the horrors that come with all three supernatural races, as well as with humans are thrown into the mix, living together would be overlooked. A sacrifice for getting the city that they wanted. Building the life that they wanted. For one sweet, tender moment, they were all together and finally happy.

And then, of course, Mikael came. And like a great tidal wave, he destroyed everything in his path. Even the dream of all of his children. Especially that of the bastard son he raised.

The destruction of their city, the threat of Mikael - Elijah opting to stay behind to hold him off - killing them all, losing someone they all came to love dearly in their own way, and the annihilation of the foolish notion that they could ever live freely without fear of their world crashing around them was enough to send them all on their separate ways. Finally, Mikael had done it. He managed to scatter all of the children that he raised to the winds in all different directions. The only two that stayed together were Klaus and Rebekah.

Defeat and loss were like ash in their mouths and a white oak stake to their chests. And for a long time to follow - a hundred years, so nothing to an Original Vampire - their grief at once more losing their home forced them apart. Over the years each sibling found solace in being away from the group for a short time - sometimes for a year, like Rebekah. Sometimes for a decade like Kol, and sometimes for three decades, like Finn. But always and forever foretold their return. They would always come back to each other. No matter what.

Klaus hated those times more than anything else. He hated the idea of his siblings leaving his side. If Klaus had his way, they would never leave his side. It takes a lot of effort on all of their parts to convince him to let them go. Kol once, ever the troublemaker, figured he didn't want to deal with Klaus's "overactive imagination and anxiety" over him leaving so he left without a word. Klaus nearly tore the world apart looking for him, and when he found him, daggered him for sixty years to ensure he never forgot.

It never got easier over the years, to leave Klaus's side. Not until the destruction of New Orleans. Klaus understood his siblings' need for time apart from one another to finally, fully establish themselves away from each other, which was the only thing helping him fight his instinct to gather all of his siblings back together again. Rebekah helped convince him that they need this time apart. A hundred years isn't anything to an Original. Needless to say, Klaus uses his agents around the world to keep an eye on his wayward siblings, whether they want him to or not.

Losing Marcel and New Orleans and everything else that they had built once more to Mikael - for a hundred times over, it feels - there was a tangible fissure forming between the siblings. From those that were still terrified of Mikael, of what he would do once he got to them, and those that were sick and tired of running from him. Letting the fear of his rampage continue to haunt them across the world for another thousand years.

Despite their divide on what exactly to do with Mikael, one thing remains certain to all of them, something has to give. A thousand years running is far too long for anyone to be able to stand. The exhaustion of running, and living in fear follows all of them around like fatigue bones deep and nightmare plagued dreams that never cease. They couldn't live like that anymore. Any of them.

Over their long lives, each and every one of the siblings met many extraordinary people. Some became friends, more became enemies, and some were simply passersby in the streets. There one moment and gone the next. Some vampires, some werewolves, some humans. Most were outlived, some still pop up from time to time for one reason or another, but despite having seen so much more of the world than any other, there was still so much yet to be seen. Places that hadn't been explored and people unlike any other to be discovered.

They all have so much more to continue to see.

Going their separate ways, perhaps, was what was best for all of them. What was that saying about distance and what it does to the heart? Like something foretold by the oldest and wisest of witches, a prophetic vision of a future full of hardship, heartbreak, love, and betrayal, the convergence of the sons and daughter of Mikael and Esther reap upon nature an imbalance, unlike the world, has ever seen.

And it starts a thousand years after their deaths. With word of the newest Petrova Doppelganger having appeared in a small Virginia town of Mystic Falls that stands where their home once stood, long ago.


	2. Relationships

There was a decent build-up to their worlds colliding together. Time for things to settle, to explode, and to go so very wrong. It started on the first day of school.

Caroline drones out the public speaker that goes on about the importance of not texting while driving. While everyone else was either half listening, or daydreaming about one thing or another. Caroline had out a notebook, diligently working through her week's schedule. Everything was organized and color-coded. She made sure that everything was orderly and neat before waving her hand in front of the page to make sure the ink is dried before she closes her notebook. She lets out a long, drawn-out sigh, not listening to the speaker as her eyes scan the crowd stilling on the bleachers around her.

Bonnie and Elena are a few rows up and to her right. They managed to beat her there but then got surrounded by a bunch of other people - Matt, Tyler, and their friends on the football team as well as a few cheerleaders. Bonnie offers a little wave, mouthing another apology for them not being able to save her a seat. Caroline offers her a smile and a little shrug. It's not her fault. It's not really anyone's fault. Caroline's not mad at Bonnie or Elena. Honestly, her feelings are a little hurt, but she's not really mad.

She hugged Elena this morning, then asked Bonnie if Elena was okay, knowing Bonnie would know better, but Elena answered, saying she was fine. Caroline didn't believe her one bit but realized quickly that she was not going to help Elena reacclimate to being back. She could tell Elena didn't really want to be smothered, which Caroline understood. But she loved Elena so much, worried so much for her, that she couldn't help to hug her one more time, hoping that maybe it would help her feel better. Even if it was only a little bit.

What hurt was when she walked away and Elena dismissed her. She knew she was being thoughtless but hearing her best friend say that struck her heart in a way there weren't words for. But she didn't blame her. Caroline wasn't really mad. Elena just needed a bit more time, and a comforting hand Caroline couldn't provide. It wasn't anything bad or rude just, "No comment."

It shouldn't hurt Caroline's feelings, it really shouldn't. She's been insecure her entire life, always feeling like everyone always liked Elena more, that Elena and Bonnie were closer to each other than her, that no matter what, the two people she loved most in the world, despite that evil green jealous, may not love her as much as she loved them. They are all different people, and Elena and Bonnie love her, she knows that. She also knows that if given enough time she gets too in her head about things that she shouldn't be freaking out over. She reads too much into things. Elena just lost her parents, she needs time to find her new normal.

Caroline can accept that, no matter how painful.

She's spent pretty much all summer alone - after Elena and Jeremy went back to live with their aunt Jenna once she got legal guardianship of them. Bonnie has been at Whitmore College with her Grams the whole time too. It's been a really weird summer vacation. So much happened, so much went wrong. Caroline knows that not everything can remain the same as it has always been, but that doesn't mean it's getting any easier. Caroline knows that Elena has had it horribly rough since the death of her parents and Bonnie's Grams needs help and wants to bond with her granddaughter. There isn't anything wrong with both of them having lives outside of her.

And she has a life too. Cheer, student committees, school work, and so on. Still, she was hoping that things would turn out to be somewhat the same as before.

It's dumb. She knows it is, which is why she's not mad. She's just lonely.

Elena follows Bonnie's eyes over to Caroline and offers a little smile that transforms her pretty face. There is still sadness in her pretty brown eyes that kills Caroline to see, making her feel bad for her insecurity and thoughtlessness. That ugly little part of her that focuses only on Elena and everyone else's view on her rears its even uglier head once more. Caroline stomps the feeling down deep into her chest and smiles back at her friend.

Caroline turns away from her friends in time to catch the principal thanking the speaker for coming before announcing, "Alright, before we let everyone go, we have one more announcement from Sheriff Forbes. Everyone, please welcome the Sheriff."

He steps aside while Caroline's mom comes strutting into the center of the room, looking like she owned the place. Caroline could feel the eyes of her classmates turn to her. Caroline doesn't focus on them, she just slowly closes the notebook on her lap to put amongst her stuff, keeping her eyes on her mom. She doesn't remember hearing anything about her mom coming to her school, then again, she hadn't seen her mom at all today, but a text message would have been nice.

Liz's pretty blue eyes scan the crowd of teenagers, waiting for them to all quiet down from their respectful clapping before taking the mic that the principal offered her, and then her gaze finally finds Caroline. Her lips quirk a bit in a hello and Caroline waves her hand a bit, still surprised that her mom was there, but curious about why she was there, to begin with.

"Hello guys," Liz says, pulling her eyes away from Caroline to address the crowd of teens. "As most of you know, I am Liz Forbes, I'm the Sheriff here in Mystic Falls and I wanted to inform all of you about a new nightly curfew." The words barely left Liz's mouth before the teens around Caroline started to moan and groan rather loudly in their protest.

"Oh my god," Caroline bemoans, sinking back into the wooden riser behind her. "And everyone knows that she's my mom." She covers her face with her hands, wishing that she could sink into the floor and disappear forever. It's bad enough that she had to come to Caroline's school dressed up in her uniform, but now she's enforcing a curfew?

This is the worst. This school year was supposed to be different, but now it's turning out to be worse than ever before.

Liz nods slowly, accepting the dissatisfaction of the teens with grace. She waits until they settle down, giving a little wave of her hand. "I know, I know. I'm sorry that I ruin all the fun, but there has been a vicious animal attack last night that took the lives of two people. This is for your own protection. I'm initiating a curfew for ten o'clock. Everyone should be indoors before nightfall until further notice."

The school groans once more and Caroline can hear everyone whispering around her about how unfair it was and how no one was going to really listen to that nonsense. People were also whispering about the back-to-school party that was supposed to occur tomorrow night. Caroline couldn't believe that this was happening! School was supposed to bring back the fun. Sure, homework and class and whatever, but it was being able to see her friends and have fun and return to some semblance of normality. And now here her mom was, telling them that the whole town has a curfew? She couldn't believe this.

Caroline rubs roughly at her face, trying to work through the stress building up in her shoulders. Nothing was going the way it's supposed to. This sucks.

"I mean it," Liz says, looking around the room. "I would hate to have to drive each and every one of you back home, but I will. Just for a few weeks, at most, then everything should be back to normal, I promise. If for whatever reason you have to be out past ten, it is advised that you go about your business quickly and return home. And don't be out at night without at least a group of four or more. Oh, and I know I shouldn't have to say this to a bunch of teenagers," Liz says, looking around the room before her eyes settle on Caroline, "but never invite strangers into your home."

***

"Can you believe this? Now we can't have our back to school party," Caroline sighs dramatically as soon as she corners Elena and Bonnie as everyone starts to pile out of the gym after Liz's announcement. "And say goodbye to anything fun until this prison sentence is over with."

Bonnie gives her a look that she recognizes for when the pretty dark-skinned girl doesn't approve of her words, thinking that she's being over-dramatic. "I would hardly call it that, Care."

"I think your mom is right," Elena adds, wrapping her arms around her midsection. "If there is an animal prowling about, killing people, I think that we should stay indoors until it's caught."

Caroline gives her a sideways look. "She didn't say don't ever go outside, just not at night. What sort of animal attacks only at night? I don't think that this is just about some animal."

Elena's eyebrows pull together in confusion while Bonnie purses her lips and tilts her head to the side, staring at the tall blonde in front of her. When Caroline doesn't just continue with what she was saying, Bonnie prompts her with a smooth, "Okay, I can accept that being a bit odd. But if not an animal, then what? It's your mom, Care. Why would she lie about that?"

Caroline opens her mouth, thinks about it, then closes it. "I don't know," she admits. She throws her hands. "I don't know, okay? I'm just saying, this year is supposed to be fun and it's already off to a terrible start. I mean, after everything-" She catches herself before something horribly inconsiderate popped out of her mouth, especially after her little slip up in the morning and quickly recovers with, "- everything that happened with Cheer this morning."

Both Bonnie's and Elena's eyebrows pull together as they stare at her, neither knowing what happened seeing as both decided not to show up in the morning. Caroline's first session as team captain, she couldn't believe it. She understood, first day and all, they had other things, but Caroline was a little disappointed that they didn't show up. And she was so excited to be Captain this year.

Caroline launched into how Emily wasn't pointing her toes enough. How Taylor was always a half a beat behind everyone else and how Amanda just wasn't memorizing the routine fast enough.

"Care," Elena says slowly, tucking loose strands of long brown hair behind her ear, "it's the first day. Everyone is going to need a bit of time to adjust to being back. There's no need to worry. It'll all be fine."

Caroline gives her a look. "I know, but they should really try harder. It'll be good to have the two of you there after school to show them how it's done." Her sigh of relief is met with blank stares back at the blonde by the two brunets. Caroline's eyebrows pull together as worry zings through her. "Wait, what is with that look? You two are coming today, right? Right? Oh, come on, Elena? Bonnie?"

Elena unfolds her hands, holding them up in surrender. "I will be there."

Bonnie nods. "Me too. Sorry, we had to bail on you this morning."

Caroline waves it away, deciding that she wasn't going to let how upset she was about all of this get in the way of them finally doing something together. "Excellent, well, I'd better head to class. See you, ladies, later!"

With that Caroline turns on her heel, slipping into the crowd of fellow students, and off to her class. Tomorrow night might be ruined, but maybe after Cheer, she can convince Bonnie and Elena to come over for a sleepover, just like old times.

***

Caroline tries not to let the fact that Bonnie and Elena couldn't come over bother her. She sort of got the feeling that neither of them was much into school at the moment - not that she could blame them - but she had other things to help focus on. One was the new guy in school, Stefan Salvatore, who showed up after the school assembly, that she spent the whole day learning everything the rumor mill could spew out at her about him and the other was the fact that the majority of the school seemed like they were still going to go to the back to school party.

So at least she had that going for her.

Elena and Bonnie did agree to go to the Grill with her for a little while, which she appreciated, and Elena definitely seemed interested in getting to know more about Stefan, which Caroline was happy to blab about to help fill the silence. That is until Caroline caught Elena stealing more than a few glances over at him and that angry, ugly little part of her reared it's head once more. It hurt because Stefan was cute and new and of course Elena was interested in him, and judging by the looks he was sending back her way, he was interested in her too.

Because of course. Beautiful, wonderful, perfect Elena. Who wouldn't be interested in her?

But Caroline doesn't say anything because it's not Elena's fault. It's not her fault that she's beautiful and lovely and perfect. It's not her fault that people are interested in her. And despite how envious Caroline is of Elena and her beauty, she loved her so much more than that. Never mind the bitterness or the jealousy, at the end of the day, Caroline loved Elena, more than she envied her.

So she accepted Elena bailing on her with grace because Bonnie stuck around for a while after.

"Are you okay, Caroline?" Bonnie asks once Elena left.

"Hm?" Caroline hums, sipping at her soda and glancing over at the brunette. "What do you mean?"

"You seem a bit down," Bonnie observes, leaning her chin on her fist, giving the blonde a knowing look. "Is this about today?"

Caroline scoffs, knowing that she has a terrible poker face, and Bonnie is just observant enough to be able to tell when something was bothering her. Bonnie could always tell. "I'm okay. It's fine. I'm just upset about how everything has been turning out today. I can't wait for everything to go back to normal. This year was supposed to be great, and it's... well, not."

Bonnie laughs, shaking her head. "Caroline, it's the first day. I know everything isn't going the way you imagined it would, but I promise, it's all going to be alright. Just be patient."

Caroline rolls her eyes, pushing her empty glass away from her, resting her arms on the table, and looking at her best friend. "I am patient, Bonnie, but you know that I'm not good with things changing so much. I just..." she sighs. "I just miss you. I miss Elena. It seems like you guys are so far away from me."

Bonnie's eyebrows pull together. "Far away? Care, no. We're right here. Elena is going through something really hard right now and I've just been a little busy. But nothing has changed. We're still here, we still love you. Trust me."

"I know," Caroline says, still not completely feeling better. "I love you too."

***

Caroline liked being able to forget about how zoned out Elena and Bonnie were during the day - including cheer - to go out drinking in the forest with her classmates at the back-to-school party. She knows that she shouldn't have been there, especially because her mom would kill her if she knew, but also because, honestly, Caroline knows that her mom knows it is probably still going on. If Caroline had to guess, they probably hoped that it would be canceled but weren't really holding their breath.

Plus they are in a group larger than four, which is what her mom asked for, so they aren't exactly breaking any rules.

Caroline can't blame the police for trying, but she needed this to help unwind from watching Stefan and Elena make googly eyes at one another all day. The less she had to think about the guy she wanted to know better being interested in her best friend the better. This is just how things are. Next time. The next time will be better. She just knows it.

It's nice to see her classmates all hanging around having fun. This is what she's been dreaming about since school ended last year. They would all hang out and have so much fun - sure, Matt and Elena aren't together anymore and he's still giving her puppy-dog eyes from across the fire pit while she's focused on Stefan, but that doesn't mean that once the two of them get over their breakup that they can't all be friends and spend time together. Stefan might be interested more in Elena as a girlfriend, but maybe he'll want to be friends with Caroline too.

She was having a good time talking with Matt and some of the other football players when she heard the screams coming from the other side of the party. It took her a minute to really realize what she was hearing. Once she realized, she followed the crowd toward where Jeremy Gilbert, Elena's kid brother, sat with a bloodied Vicki Donovan in his arms. Caroline turned away and called the cops immediately, hearing others around her doing the same. She just couldn't believe what happened.

Could this be an animal attack? What kind of animal goes after a full-grown adult at a loud party? Where was Vicky when she was attacked? Was she with Jeremy? Why wasn't Jeremy hurt like she was? What happened? Caroline is no expert on animals, that's for sure, but something about this just didn't seem right, but she just couldn't put her finger on why that was. Why none of this really added up to her.

Needless to say, the party broke up right after the police showed up, which was definitely for the best. Caroline wanted a good time, not something like this. She wouldn't have hoped that this party was still going on if she knew that someone was going to get hurt. She knew Vicki second hand. She's sort of friends with Matt, her younger brother, through his relationship with Elena.

Caroline gets a ride to the grill which proved to Caroline that it was more of a suggestion and not an actual law, or whatever, seeing as there were still people out and about, but she couldn't help but feel bad for her part in just being there. She didn't organize or orchestrated the party, she hardly knew Vicki Donovan and she doesn't remember seeing her at all that night, but she was there. Caroline just sort of wishes that there was something that she could have done to help her. Unfortunately, all she can do is simply hope that she'll be alright.

Liz didn't say anything at Caroline's slow walk of shame past her, but the look was enough. Thankfully she didn't get close enough to smell how intoxicated Caroline is at the moment. Sweet compassionate Bonnie would never leave to fend for herself or leave her alone when she is obviously still inebriated.

Caroline sips at her water, watching Bonnie who was staring at her phone. "What are you looking at?" She asks around the rim of her glass.

Bonnie's dark eyes flicker up to her. "Huh? Oh, I'm just seeing if Elena texted me back yet..."

It takes Caroline's addled brain a moment to realize that no, in fact, Elena wasn't there with them. "Where is Elena anyway? Is she with Matt?"

Bonnie shakes her head, looking down at her phone again. "No, that new guy took her home. Stefan Salvatore."

"Oh..." slips from Caroline's lips before she could stop it. Bonnie's eyebrows quirk as she glances back up at Caroline, making the blonde feel the need to explain, "I'm just surprised, to be honest. I kind of got the feeling that he didn't like being here. I'm glad he's nice enough to look after Elena, though." Which is true. Stefan hasn't been outright rude or mean to her by any means. He's been friendly, but indifferent. He seems like he's trying to keep a respectful difference between them. Which she supposed isn't unreasonable since this is a new town that he hasn't been to in a long time.

Plus, at least with all of the scary stuff going on, Elena is safe, which Caroline is thankful for.

"Yeah..." Bonnie says slowly, her eyebrows pulling together in worry. Caroline recognizes that look on her best friend. Something is definitely bothering her.

"What's wrong, Bonnie?" Caroline asks, sipping at her water a bit more, feeling her head clear up.

"Nothing," Bonnie says quickly. Caroline gives her a look, raising an eyebrow at her. Bonnie sighs. "Okay, my Grams has been telling me that I'm psychic because our family lineage leads back to Salem and all of that. So when Stefan touched my hand the first time I met him... I don't know. I just got a bad feeling from him. I don't know how to explain it."

Caroline stares at Bonnie, raising her other eyebrow. "What does that even mean?"

Bonnie sighs. "Nothing, never mind."

"No, Bonnie, I don't understand, just explain it to me," Caroline insists. Her tone may have been a bit incredulous - which she didn't mean for it to be - but she really was curious. This was more of a Bonnie and Elena conversation than a Caroline and Bonnie one and Caroline was eager to push past that barrier. Bonnie was her friend, and she loved her. She knew that there was a connection between Bonnie and Elena that neither of them shared with her, but she still felt like there was a chance that she could. That one day they would feel like they could tell her the weird things too.

Bonnie shakes her head again, smiling softly. "No, it's nothing. I'm just overthinking it, I'm sure."

"Bonnie - " Caroline starts softly but Bonnie's phone going off stops her. Caroline's mouth snaps shut so fast her jaw hurt.

"Oh good," Bonnie says, sighing in relief, "Elena made it home alright. I was really worried there for a second."

"That's good," Caroline agrees, leaning back in her chair. "Hey, Bonnie? About before..."

Bonnie's smile is kind and smooth. "It's okay, Care. I'm sure I'm just overreacting, is all."

Caroline wilts a bit, shoulders drooping a bit but force a smile, hoping that Bonnie wouldn't be able to tell how much this dismissal hurt her. "Well, so long as you're sure. I guess it's time to head home, right?"

Bonnie nods, standing up while dropping some money onto the table for the server. "Alright, let me take you home."

***

Caroline hums to herself as she walks home after the festival in the city square, thinking about the pretty comet that flew overhead. It's been a weird few days since Vicki Donovan was attacked by that wild animal out in the woods the day of the back-to-school party. Thankfully she survived and hopefully she's going to be okay. Despite Matt and Elena not being together anymore, Caroline made sure to swing by to send her best wishes to Matt - one of a hundred people, no doubt - but he thanked her and she hoped it helped him feel a bit better.

She enjoyed spending her time around people. For a small amount of time, she got to convince herself she wasn't lonely. Bonnie seemed bothered by something that she wasn't willing to really talk about - at least not with Caroline. And Elena is getting closer to Stefan, which Caroline is finally coming to accept is just her luck, but she is happy for them. She does hope for the best for both of them. She wants them to be happy.

She hums The Climb by Miley Cyrus under her breath as she walks, her pretty blue eyes finding her home in the darkness of the street in front of her. The same streets she's walked her entire life. She knows that she should have walked home with someone else, at least, but thankfully she's not so far from home for her to be worried.

Caroline has walked these same streets every day of her life. She made sure to stay under streetlights and didn't drag her feet while going. And despite how anxious she was for school to start in hopes that it would mean that everything would return to normal - which is silly since almost nothing has gone back to the way it was - she is enjoying this moment of peace. Of solidarity because she doesn't have to try to impress anyone.

She can just be Caroline. Caroline, who is the type of person who enjoys long walks while humming songs. To be honest, some of her favorite memories is walking down this street with Elena and Bonnie, singing as loud as she could. Her favorite songs, and some she didn't like but knew Bonnie or Elena did so that they would sing along too. Their voices would bounce off the houses in the night and they would laugh without a care.

Caroline missed those sweet moments. So silly. So simple. What she wouldn't give to be back in those moments. For Bonnie and Elena to be here with her now. Just like old times. Just like good, easy times.

"You have a beautiful voice."

Caroline yelps, her humming going horribly off-key as she jumps at the sound of a voice she wasn't expecting. She looks to her left to see a man standing in the middle of the road and immediately Caroline is intimidated by how cute he is. Beautiful dark hair and piercing blue eyes, a dreamy bad boy, no doubt.

And Caroline loved her bad boys.

"Huh?" Caroline gasps, hand over her pounding heart. "What did you say?"

He smiles and it's beautiful and charming. "I said, you have a beautiful voice."

"Oh," Caroline says, flushing a bit. "Well, that was sweet of you to say. Thanks."

His smile widens a bit. "You're welcome." An awkward moment of silence passes between them before the man offers his hand to her. "I'm Damon."

Caroline hesitates for a moment more, still intimidated by how handsome this man is before her. Damon looks to be in his early twenties, bad boy, with pretty eyes? He was just Caroline's type. She takes his hand, smiling sweetly back at him, finally able to focus on something aside from Bonnie, Elena and Stefan probably about to get together, the animal attack that Vicki Donovan barely survived, and honestly feeling more isolated from her friends than she's felt in a long time, "Nice to meet you. I'm Caroline."

He shakes her hand nice and slow, staring into her eyes and suddenly Caroline has a weird feeling settling over her. An uneasy feeling that she can't put into words off the top of her head. His smile suddenly sharpens as his grip on her hand tightens. "Tell me, Caroline. Do you know someone named Elena Gilbert?" Elena? What about Elena? Who was this guy? And why did he want with Elena?

An unexplainable fear zings through her as she yanks her hand back, struggling the first time in his grip before yanking again and finally being let free, and retreats a few steps away from the strange man. "N-no. I don't. I have to go."

Her skin crawls as suddenly the feeling of danger washes over her. She races around him toward her house, heart pounding in her chest in sync with her shoes slapping against the pavement. She jumps over the curb and up onto the grass leading to the front door. Her feet barely touch the porch before her hand is outstretched, grabbing onto the door opening it only a bit before a hand slams it closed and she feels hot breath against the back of her neck.

Caroline was running so fast, breathing so hard, that she didn't even know that he had followed her. The painful stitch forming in her side, coupled with the roaring of her blood in her ears is enough to frighten her frozen. She doesn't have to turn around to know that it's Damon at her back. Her legs tremble and she stops breathing, as if somehow by freezing up and holding her breath, he won't know where she is. He won't be able to hurt her like she's terrified he will.

"No, Caroline," Damon whispers softly into her ear, making her shiver in fear. "No need to be afraid."

Caroline whimpers, her heart beating hard against her chest as he slowly pushes hair over her shoulder. "Please, leave me alone. I don't know anything!" She can feel tears sliding down her cheeks. "Pl-Please." She wasn't going to talk about Elena. She wasn't going to help this strange weirdo corner her best friend. He wasn't going to get anything from her. She would never betray her best friend. Not for some weirdo who probably wants to murder her and wear her skin. No, he wasn't going to get anything from her.

If he wanted anything on Elena, he wasn't going to get it from Caroline. He would have to pry it from her cold, dead, lips.


	3. Inside and Outside

She screams.

Horrible, terribly wailing that shreds away at her eardrums as she collapses into the darkness that swallows her up. She thrashes about wildly, searching for something stable to grasp onto. Every time it feels like she's just about to grab hold of a lifeline, it slips between her fingers like water and she's left to frantically continue her search for salvation.

Caroline knows this drowning feeling. Where it feels like her head has slipped beneath a heavy wave as the weight of the water wraps around her, pulling her further, deeper into its depths. She knows the feeling of pressure in her lungs and a tightness in her throat she struggles for air. The wild panic that turns her fires her blood through her veins like a firehose as her vision is surrounded by blackness, the lightness in her head terrifying her more than almost anything else. The only thing that tops even that? The silence.

Her body is screaming. Her veins pulsating, her heart pounding, her muscles tense, her motions wild, and in her mind, she's screaming. Her eyes flicker back in forth in the growing darkness trying to catch a shred of light. She feels the tearing at her throat and the ache of her lungs as she forces out air as shrill and as strong as she can - yet she hears nothing. Complete and total silence. There aren't even bubbles floating from her lips to let her know that she was in fact screaming, it was just muffled. But there was nothing. Nothing but the fear, and panic, and the silence.

The terror in that chills her more.

She reaches out with one wild hand toward the sky, watching as the light gets further and further away. She can hear her screaming as she imagined it would, in her own head. Somehow she knows that there is no noise in her ears. It's a very disconnected feeling. In a way, she feels like she's being severed from her own body. Bit by bit, thread by thread she's being torn apart.

But this isn't the first time she's felt like this.

When relations between her parents began to disintegrate, Caroline did all she could think of to keep her family together. It felt so abrupt, so sudden, that her father came out as gay and divorced her mother. Then in a matter of days, her father was packing his things and moving out. Goodbye felt like a pat on the shoulder, a kiss on the forehead, and a quick 'I love you'.

There aren't words to describe how she felt right afterward. She felt hopeless and abandoned and the only modicum of cathartic release that she could find was to take it out on her mom. It both made her feel better and made her feel even worse. A horrible vicious cycle.

Caroline blamed Liz for not being enough. For not being good enough. Not to make her dad straight, she knew that wasn't a choice, but somehow, her mom was supposed to be able to do anything. She was supposed to be better than anyone else at everything else. Yet she couldn't make her own husband stay. Yet she couldn't tell that Bill Forbes wasn't straight, and honestly, wasn't ready to be a father.

She knew that her father loved her. He loved her in the way that one would love anything that they were obligated to love. Like a pet or family. He would look after her and talk to her, but the love always felt conditional. It always felt like it was forced, in a way. Sure, there must be something in him that loves her, but it's not what she thinks love should be. It always felt detached, limited. Caroline hated that. She hated always feeling like that. Feeling like she was being tolerated, not loved.

Caroline wasn't completely sure that it wasn't normal. She had seen Elena's loving parents, and Bonnie's dad and grams. Caroline even had her own mom who she felt closer to what she wanted. But she always wanted that connection to her dad, and just being with him and watching him, Caroline was just finally coming to terms with the idea that maybe Bill just wasn't like that. That her father loved her in the only way that he could, which was the same way that he loved everybody, even her mom, who she thought was the love of her father's life.

Then they divorced and while Caroline was desperately trying to hold the frail pieces of her life together, desperately trying to understand, she met Stephan, her dad's boyfriend. And Caroline, for the first time in her life, hated him. Not Stephan. No, Stephan wasn't a homewrecker like Caroline wanted to imagine he was. Stephan was kind and sweet and welcoming.

She hated her father. Hated every bright smile, expression of love, and the absolution that came with feeling free. She was happy that he felt he no longer had to hide who he was, but she hated that he was so much happier without them.

Caroline wasn't ready to accept that she wasn't good enough. That in part, she was another reason Bill couldn't stay. She could visit, and he would love her and treat her well, but there was always a relief that came when she left, a light in his smile like things could go back to normal, that he could be himself once more and be happy. The pain of not being good enough burned Caroline so badly, she wanted someone else to feel her pain as she did.

And the only person left was her mother. It's not fair, it's unkind, and Caroline hates herself even more whenever she thinks about it, but white-hot pain of abandonment that forces the quick, unnecessary jab from her lips and hurts her mom's feelings. And in that split-second decision, another small thread that holds the pieces of Caroline together snaps.

Caroline has seen enough movies, read enough books, and told enough tales about love and life to know that this is nothing. She can get over this. Everyone has felt destroyed in some way when their family life has shaken up. Everyone has felt lost when the interests of their friends divert from their own. Everyone has felt lonely when those that they thought they couldn't live without, live on well without them there. Caroline isn't special. She's not the first person to have felt any of this. Some people even have it so much worse than her, and she has to remind herself that she isn't anything special. That a story like hers is told a thousand times before. At least Caroline has both parents. At least she's in good health and is doing well in school, captain of her cheerleading squad, and well on her way to being Miss Mystic Falls.

Caroline can be sad, but it can only go so far. So many other people have it worse than her, and she has to remember that.

But that feeling is familiar, that sinking, drowning feeling. She'll be okay, she just has to push past the annoying little voice in her head that wants to make it all about herself. Make it about her and her pain. The thing that she remembered best about those times, was the screaming beneath the surface. Her lips fell flat, her eyes wide and alert, but inside she couldn't help it.

Inside, she screamed.

Caroline sits up slowly from her bed, turning her head slightly to look at the light pouring in from the curtains. The light of day feels harsh against her eyes and her skin and when she moves, there is an ache across her body. Her arms, her back, her legs. She looks down at her body to see that she's managed to redress in her undergarments and this sinking emptiness fills her. She lifts up her arm, looking at the series of unusual... bite marks up her arms, and she can feel them on her shoulders and neck. They look like a series of two puncture holes all over her body.

And that ache. That ache that can't be anything but what it is.

The night flashed before her eyes. Damon on the streets, cornering her, telling her to invite him into her house, her body disobeying the screaming in her mind, and the sex. So much sex and biting and... his eyes. He drank her blood. Like... like...

Caroline looks at the bed next to her to see Damon sleeping peacefully and her heart jumps up into her throat. For a moment, she's paralyzed in that fear, staring down at his handsome, sleeping face. He looks like an angel with dark hair, mused by sleep with dark eyelashes resting against pale cheeks. He would have been the type of boy Caroline would shamelessly chase had things ended up differently. Now, all she can do is look down at him in horror and fear. He wasn't just some guy who raped her and for whatever reason stuck around. He was a monster.

She sucks in a few, trembling breaths before slowly pulling the covers off of her legs as she slowly slides off the bed, not wanting to wake Damon up. He's... something. He... he isn't human. She's not sure what he is, but he can't be human.

Caroline looks straight ahead to see her own face staring back at her from the full-length mirror on the other side of the room. She watches as tears trickle down the face of the girl reflected back at her. Her pale face, the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair all messed up from sex and sleeping and bruises like hands across her body. She doesn't look like Caroline. She looks like death.

Caroline screams on the inside as the terror and fear wash through her in waves. She pushes through the shaking in her limbs as she slips her legs out from under the covers and lowers them slowly to the carpet, her heart pounding in her chest. Die... she's going to die. She has no idea why he let her live, but it feels like borrowed time.

Her heart is pounding like a drum in her ears as she slips from the bed and around it, heading for the door. Where was her mom? Was she home? Did she pull another all-nighter?

Caroline didn't know. All she knew was that she had to get out of this room. She had to get away from this dangerous stranger. This Damon. He kept her alive, no doubt because of whatever reason he is obsessed with Elena, but she knows that's only for now. She can feel it. He won't let her live long after he gets what he wants.

Her hand reaches out, wrapping around the cold metal of her doorknob - and the floor creeks under her weight. Caroline freezes as pure fear paralyzes all of the muscles in her body. Adrenaline heightens her hearing but there isn't any sound coming from the bed behind her. Either Damon is still asleep, or he simply opened his eyes and hasn't moved otherwise. There is a slight sound of her hand shaking on the doorknob over the pounding of her heart in her chest. Her lack of blood making her lightheaded, but the adrenaline in her veins urging her forward and forgetting about the ache and weakness of her body.

Caroline blinks a few times rapidly, knowing she should just swing the door open and run for her life, as fast as her legs can carry her to someone - anyone - that could help her, but she felt a fresh wave of fear lock her in place. She had no idea of how light of a sleeper Damon was. What if he heard that noise? What if he was awake and watching her? She warred with herself. Half wanted to damn the consequences and run for it, the other still wanting to air on the side of caution and sneak away quietly.

The internal conflict tightened her muscles and locked her in place. Then, before she can keep fighting with herself, she sneaks a peek over her shoulder to look at the bed, to see that it's empty.

Damon was gone.

Then she felt him standing behind her, watching her with the eyes of a predator, pitying her for being naive enough to think that she could get away from him. She lets out a scream of terror and tries to swing the door open, but he stops her, closing the door with superior strength. She breaks away before he can lock her in between his body and the door, rushing to grab a lamp off of her table, barely hearing him as he tells her to not do it before it she throws it at his head and it breaks off of him without even making him flinch. He just purses his lips at her as her flight instinct kicks into overdrive. She scrambles across the bed, needing to put something physical between them, even though she knows that he's fast enough to get around it.

He walks around the other side, smiling coyly at her. He says something but she doesn't hear, her blood roaring in her ears as she makes another break for the door, screaming when he grabs hold of her and tosses her onto the bed, landing on top of her in a few smooth movements. He leans in close, hot breath washing across her face as she screams, terrified tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Shhh," Damon says softly, staring into her eyes. "Stop screaming."

And she did. Her mouth snapped closed, staring back up into Damon's pretty blue eyes. His irises dance and she feels her desire to scream grow, but the ability to do so fades. On the inside, she screams in horror as her body refuses to obey her once more, and she is caught under his devilish spell, forced to obey.

Vampire. Damon is a vampire.

That's what he told her as he drank her blood. That's what sort of monster he was. He could move fast, was very strong, and was able to manipulate her mind, making her do whatever it was that he wanted her to do. He was able to take away her free will, just like that! Just by looking into his eyes, she would fall under his spell.

Damon compelled away her fear - on the outside. He compelled away her voice - on the outside. And he compelled away her freewill - on the outside. On the outside, she smiled and laughed. She asked questions and listened to him talk about Elena and someone named Katherine. He also spoke about Stefan too, about his own brother.

Stefan Salvatore's brother, Damon Salvatore.

Ironic. Caroline was vying for the attention of the new boy in school but managed to be picked up by the brother. And not in a good way. Damon turned out to be far worse than any of the stories say about bad boys. He wasn't human. He wasn't tormented with a nice side - and if he was, it was reserved for someone else - and he wasn't someone to be trusted. He was a very bad guy.

On the outside, she was as close to normal as someone could make her be. She knew that her actions weren't her own, and prayed that others would be able to tell the difference too, but it doesn't seem like it. Caroline feels like she's trapped, like sleep paralysis, in her own body while it does whatever Damon tells it to. But not always. Caroline, slowly, felt herself regaining small bits of control. Not a lot, and not really control either. It felt like she was able to recognize herself, if only for a moment, beneath the compulsion blanket that Damon pulled over her eyes.

But on the inside, Caroline listened. She listened to him talk, obeyed his commands, and while she tried desperately to reach out to her friends. While smiling at them and trying her best to act out of the ordinary without running into the compulsion wall that Damon put up around her, they smiled back. Relief in their eyes and their smiles, unable to see that on the side, she was screaming. She knows that she isn't the easiest person to get along with, but surely she is acting out of character enough that they know that something is wrong. Shouldn't they?

Then again, they might just be wrapped up in all their own things to notice. They don't owe her anything.

Damon spends a lot of time around her. He kept her home all day from school, finally letting her go to cheer practice afterward. He told her to act normal before kissing her and driving off, promising to be back to pick her up. Caroline's mind whirled. Throughout the practice, she tried to fight the part inside of her that wanted to obey, finding it extraordinarily exhausting and that the will kept slipping away from her, bit by bit. It took tremendous effort to reach out to Bonnie and Elena, and the only way she could without compulsion blackening out her senses was to act somewhat bitchy to Elena, something she wouldn't normally do - or at least she thought so.

But instead of noticing something was up, Elena simply obeyed, walking to the back of the group to half-heartedly watch the moves, and turn her attention to Stefan Salvatore, playing out on the field. In her head, Caroline is screaming for Elena to hear her, to notice that something was wrong, but she doesn't. Her eyes are too focused on the field, her mind elsewhere.

Caroline felt her fight start to leave her again as she slips back into her zombie-like state, trapped within her own mind. They went back to cheer practice as if nothing ever happened. Screaming Caroline slowly grew silent.

Dinner at Elena's house had Caroline shrieking - on the inside. It took her a while - throughout the day - to pull herself back to the surface of the water, trying to fight through the hypnotic effect of Damon's compulsion. Elena was there. Elena was what Damon wanted and she was right there, inviting him into her home - something he needed in order to get to her - like it was nothing. In the darkest parts of her mind, she could see Stefan, through a murky haze, trying to convince Elena to not invite Damon in and it burns Caroline.

He knows. He knows what Damon is, maybe even what Damon wants with Elena, but instead of telling her that he was dangerous, he tries to keep his secrets. Their secrets.

And he knew that Caroline wasn't in control of her body. He had to of known! When his green eyes find her blue ones, she can see it. He knows what's happening to her. Knows that she doesn't have control of herself, and yet he doesn't help her. Pity flashes in his eyes but that quickly passes. Caroline burns in anger on the inside at the look. She doesn't want pity, she wants help. She wants to be free of Damon and the death grip he has on her. He won't let her go because of whatever it was that he wanted from Elena.

Now, don't get Caroline wrong, she's happy that someone is looking out for Elena because the last thing she wants is for something to happen to her best friend, but she can't figure out why Stefan was letting this happen to Caroline. She didn't do anything wrong, she doesn't think. She doesn't deserve this, does she? Sure she hasn't been the greatest friend, and she's an even worse daughter, but this shouldn't be happening to her, right? This isn't punishment, is it? Damon Salvatore, his vampirism, and his ability to make her claustrophobic whilst inside her own body? No, it can't be. It can't!

...can it?

Stefan doesn't like her, that much he's made obvious. But surely she hasn't annoyed him enough to warrant this? To warrant this level of dismissal. Has she? She's never tried to be bad, she knows that it's all based on the person and she definitely isn't the easiest person to get along with, but surely she hasn't done anything that justified Stefan allowing this to continue, right?

Unless by Caroline being targeted like this... Elena is somehow safe? Caroline can't begin to imagine how that is possible, but she's starting to wonder. Seeing as Damon is focused on Elena and Stefan is too, that maybe, just maybe, this might have something more to do with Elena's safety. Can Caroline swallow her fear, steal her heart, and face this fear without flinching to help Elena?

She's not sure, but she'll try. She loves Elena. She can fight her way through this. She just needs to keep calm. She'll figure out how to get out from under Damon, and then both of them will be free.

Damon compels her into the kitchen to help Elena and Bonnie, and the threads holding Caroline above the surface compulsion sever and she slips beneath it once more.

As much as it hurt with her friends being unable to tell that something was wrong with her, Caroline felt absolute agony rip at her chest when Liz could tell right away that something was amiss. One look at Caroline and Liz's face contorted in worry as she walked around the kitchen table to stand in front of the tall blonde with her eyebrows pulled together.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" Liz asks, studying her face. "You look so pale. Are you not feeling well?"

Inside, Caroline cries in relief, begging her mother to just somehow know what was happening as the desire to blurt out what was happening was being stomped down by Damon's compulsion. Of course. Of course. All along, it was Liz. Her own mother could see that something was obviously very wrong with her. Something not even her own friends could tell. Not Bonnie or Elena.

Liz saw it and was reaching out to help her. And all Caroline can feel on the inside is a shame for how terribly she's treated her mother and love for her. Liz really was able to do anything. And no doubt loved Caroline more than Caroline ever gave her credit for. She wanted to tell Liz how much she loved her. How much she appreciated her noticing that something was wrong. Tell her about Damon and everything that has happened. About Elena and Stefan. How terrified she is and how much she desperately needs help.

But when she opens her mouth, "Uh, yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" Slips from her lips. So cold. So bratty. And it kills Caroline to see the concern in her mother's eyes build, but the dismissal of her concerns seems to hurt her. But Liz pushes past it because she's not going to let her daughter's brattiness override her concern for her only child.

"I'm not sure. You just seem a little tired lately. Do you... want to stay home from school?" Liz asks, staring into her eyes.

Caroline does. She wants to so bad because, despite the energy in her body, there is this weakness, this fatigue in her bones that has been following her around since probably long before Damon showed up, but she's just now giving it the attention that it deserves. And there is a bit of relief in that. A bit of comfort in becoming more aware of her body.

But Damon doesn't want that. He wants her to act as normal as possible. Go to school. Watch Elena. Don't draw too much attention.

So she doesn't. She just shakes her head and says, "No. I have things I need to do today. I'm fine. I'll see you later. Bye!" Before turning and walking to the door, pretending she doesn't feel her mother's worried eyes on her back as she walks away. Caroline cries pitifully for her mother in the quiet of her mind as she slips beneath the compulsion once more.

Another thread snapping.

"Damon?"

Caroline slips away after the commotion with Jeremy and Tyler fighting before the game. She didn't want to, she was relieved for any chance to get away from Damon, even for a short time. But something pulled at her. This feeling that she can't explain, something that started burying Caroline once more beneath the surface of her mind. Somehow she knew it was compulsion related. It has to have something to do with the many things that Damon has compelled Caroline to do ever since they first met.

Caroline isn't sure what it was, but she finds herself standing in the back of the building, looking between both Salvatore brothers. Her brain is unable to focus beyond the feeling of needing to be around Damon. Something to fulfill the desire placed by the compulsion, her brain tries desperately to explain.

She stands there, rooted in place as Stefan and Damon argue, her ears filling with water as their conversation dies away. She's slipping in and out of the compulsion's full control, desperately fighting it. She doesn't know why she's here or what Damon wanted her there for, but she knows, with absolute certainty, that this was not the place that she wanted to be. She wanted to be as far away from both Damon and Stefan. One who was her tormentor since the moment that she met him, and the other a cruel bystander, who stands on the sidelines, watching as Damon picks apart the threads that hold Caroline together bit by bit without saying a single word to help her.

He doesn't partake in the cruelty done upon her. Stefan, she means. But in those rare moments between blasts of compulsion, Caroline feels bitterness brewing in her chest. He knows. They are the same. He knows and he does nothing. He's leaving her to her fate like she means nothing. They were sort of becoming friends kinda, before all of this, and even if they weren't. What decent person would just sit by and let this happen?

Caroline can't breathe. Her throat feels torn to shreds with screams she can't release.

Stefan keeps sending her these silent looks that she can barely process as she stands there, swaying slightly back and forth, waiting for a spoken command. She's not sure why she's waiting, or what exactly she's waiting for. She's not even sure Damon knows. She seems... to be a tool to rile Stefan up, but Caroline's mind is too befuddled to be able to comprehend why.

But now that she's there, and they are alone, Stefan says, softly, "Leave her out of this, Damon. She's innocent of all of this. Caroline is just a simple human. She hasn't anything to do with anything. You don't need her. She can't even hurt a fly."

Whatever else Damon was about to say dies just then on his lips, as they slowly form into a smile chilled enough to extinguish the sun. Stefan tenses up, no doubt recognizing that more than even Caroline does, and even while terrified, her face remains impassive, but on the inside, she's crying in fear. Terror is coursing through her so intensely she feels herself starting to push through the thin blanket of compulsion once more. She can't do this anymore. She's so scared. She has to get away from this. Away from them.

Damon turns icy blue eyes over to her, considering something as he brings up a single pointer finger up to his lips, nibbling on the end of it for a moment before looking over at Stefan, pointing at him with that finger. "You know what, brother?" Damon asks smoothly. "You are absolutely right."

Stefan's eyebrows pull together in obvious concern, not even for a moment buying that something has changed for the good in their situation. Caroline's heart sinks into her shoes as a noise draws her attention to the door that she just came through a few minutes before.

Out walks Mr. Tanner, their terrible history teacher, and something about the way that Damon leisurely turns his attention to him makes Caroline's blood turn to ice in her veins. She doesn't know what Damon is going to do, only that it won't be anything good.

Mr. Tanner looks around at them. First at Stefan, then Damon, and finally his eyes fall on Caroline. Their hateful teacher looks at them all confused and while Caroline has never liked the guy for any reason whatsoever, something in her heart told her that Mr. Tanner was in immediate danger. Now, she normally feels that with anyone who comes close to Damon, but something in the way that Damon smiled at the evil history teacher made her knees start to shake as fear swelled up in her chest.

She screamed for him to run, but her lips stayed closed and her face impassive. More and more she fights herself and the compulsion that is wrapping around her like a viper, pulling her further and further beneath the waves. She gasps for air, trying, fighting desperately but she starts to sink further.

And then, Damon is standing next to her, placing his hands on her shoulder and leaning his cheek against her own. She feels him smile as her body relaxes to the compulsion. She turns her face toward his, against her own will, and his pretty blue eyes turn to her own. "Do me a favor, Carebear. Seeing as we love to prove boorish Stefan wrong, why don't you show him that you can hurt more than even a fly."

She tried so hard to fight it but felt herself drown beneath the surface once more, all of the energy, all of the fight leaving her. She screams hoarse as she thrashes about in the darkness, screaming, crying, begging for someone to save her as her body begins to move on its own.


	4. Forget It All

Caroline sinks to the ground, her trembling knees unable to hold her up anymore. Caroline isn't a fighter, not in the slightest. She never has taken any self-defense classes - even though her mother had been musing about it for a long time as "just a way to protect yourself, sweetie." - or tried to emulate from movies that she's seen or anything like that. So fighting Mr. Tanner was unlike anything she has ever done, or ever imagined she would do. Caroline herself has never been a violent person, in the slightest. She might be sassy and maybe a bit mean, but she's never raised her hand against anyone before. Ever. And she's never thought about it either.

Never having fought before, Caroline can only imagine the trainwreck she must have looked like. And she was crying. Actually, it's better to say that she was sobbing. Horrible, breathless sobbing. Uncontrollably, she might add. She obeyed the compulsion - not like she really had a choice in the matter - and fought as hard as she could while sobbing the whole time. The only minute bit of comfort that she could get from this situation. Releasing just the tiniest bit of pain built up in her heart.

Stefan, at some point, couldn't take it anymore. Whether it was simply the sight of Caroline and Mr. Tanner fighting one another, or perhaps he felt pity for his part in all of this. Perhaps not an intentional aggressor, like Damon, but for being passive while all of this is going on. Or, perhaps the smallest part of him was sorry that this was happening and wanted to stop it from getting worse. Or maybe he just did it for Elena, as this would be the last thing that she would have ever wanted. Either way, Stefan tries to intervene but Damon stopped him. So while Damon and Stefan wrecked the space between the rows of buses, Caroline and Mr. Tanner had a less impressive version. Caroline could see the panic in his eyes as he's forced to defend himself against Caroline simply because Damon compelled him not to be able to run away.

It all happened so fast. Both the fight and how it ended.

During the fight, Caroline felt every hit, every bit of pain. She has read stories and watched movies about people who claim to blackout when they fight. That their body takes over and they lose themselves for a short time, and when they come back into themselves the battle is over. That didn't happen to Caroline. She was so horribly aware of every action that her body made. She didn't even have the fortune of the compulsion waves dragging her under. They were finally, ironically not present and she was forced to watch as her body attacked her teacher. Damon's compulsion allowed her to cry, but despite that tiny release, it wasn't enough to quiet the screaming in her mind.

But the end was so sudden, it left her numb.

In their fight, the brothers tossing one another around ended up destroying the side of a bus. Where Damon's body created a huge dent in the side of the bus, the metal warped and jagged, when compelled Caroline pushed Mr. Tanner into the sharp edges that only scratched Damon, it cut deeply into Mr. Tanner so cleanly he was forced to stop fighting. There was blood everywhere. All over him. All over her. Some of it is her blood, but most of it is his. Especially now. Now he's bleeding so profusely as he sinks into the floor. His eyes are blown wide in shock, horror, and pain.

And the compulsion released her. Caroline stood frozen, rooted in place for a moment as the reality of what she's done hit her full force. Her knees knock together in both fear, pain, and exhaustion. Slowly, slowly, slowly, Caroline sinks down onto her knees, staring at the face of her teacher. He's so badly hurt. He's going to die. The croaking and groaning and she don't know what exactly has been pierced on Mr, Tanner, but it... it's killing him. And the reality of what she's done hits her in full force.

Caroline can't breathe.

Her eyes, red with tears still streaming down her face, lower down to her hands. The rest of her body was paralyzed, even if for only a moment, while her tears just continue to flow. It takes a moment, but her eyes finally register her hands. They are beaten and bruised and have speckles of blood across them. They don't even look like her hands anymore. The hands of a stranger that beat up a teacher that she hated more than liked, but didn't for a moment think that he deserved to be beaten up but a cheerleader who couldn't control herself in a parking lot under the cover of night and a half dozen busses under the machinations of a madman vampire whose only purpose in life is to cause chaos and sew discord.

The hands of a killer.

And then the final cord snaps like a piano wire plucked too hard and she felt herself crack. It started small, minute, and grew into a complex latticework across every fiber of her being.

Over the sound of her existence breaking down, Caroline can hear someone screaming. This horrible, throat-tearing, agony-filled scream. It sounds like a scream she's heard a million times, but never so utterly clear as this time. And it's a pain so intense, so deep, she could feel t all the way down into her toes. She's not sure how long she sat there, listening to the screaming before Stefan appears in her vision.

He grasps her face, looking into her eyes. He says something but Caroline can't hear over the screaming. He pulls her to his chest and she feels a blast of cold air around her that takes her breath away. The screams peter out into a hoarse rasp as Stefan lowers her to the pavement outside of her home. It felt like a moment, an instant, but then again, just staring into Stefan's eyes feels like a lifetime is passing her by.

His eyes lock with her and he whispers, "You have to stop screaming, Caroline."

The wave of compulsion crashes over her and her jaw snaps shut. There is intense pain there that she doesn't understand. Maybe it was from getting beaten up tonight. Maybe Mr. Tanner got more than a few good hits in that she didn't notice.

"Forget," Stefan says, pupils are dancing. "Forget all of this. Forget tonight. Forget Damon. If you see him, you avoid him. You don't go anywhere near him and you must always find a way to get away from him. Forget about tonight with Mr. Tanner. Forget about it all."

And for the first time, since meeting Damon and getting her first hit of compulsion, Caroline didn't fight it. She wanted to do all of that. She wanted to get away from Damon - and Stefan - and she wanted to forget that this night ever happened. That anything these last few weeks even happened. She wanted all of it to be washed away by the compulsion waves and wiped from her memory in its entirety.

To pretend that this life no longer existed and Caroline Forbes vanished beneath to waves.

Stefan leaves her there on the sidewalk outside of her home while she slips firmly beneath the compulsion waves as the final bits of her sink into the blackness as she starts to pull back into herself. Shaking, and staggering, she makes her way to her door and into her house, locking it behind her for fear of monsters of the night that she doesn't fully remember were out there. She goes to her bedroom and immediately strips from her tattered cheer uniform and dumps them in a pile in a corner of the room, deciding last moment to scoot it under her dresser and pretend the moment never happened.

She steps into her shower and turns it on. The blast of cold makes her shiver and her throat closes up, making it hard to breathe, she quickly turned the water to scalding and bowed her head while it ran over her head, back, neck, and shoulders. After a while of just standing there, she lowers down onto the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees and laying her cheek onto her knee. She closes her eyes and feels the exhaustion of the day finally start to work its way out of her system.

Caroline opens her eyes a bit to catch flecks of red and grains of dirt slowly circling the drain. She stares down the drain, watching as the grime, dirt, and blood flushes down it. The memories of the night start to flicker and blur more and more until Caroline isn't even slightly sure about the events that happened tonight. It took her staring down the drain to realize that's where her memories went.

While quietly sitting under the scalding spray of hot water, Caroline's mind slowly, carefully reconstructed what it could of the night. She remembered the game. She remembered Jeremy and Tyler fighting. She... she remembered walking to the back of the stadium and then -

Nothing.

It's like mentally walking right into a brick wall and a small part of her wanted to push on and see what was on the other side but a gut-wrenching terror stops her. A warning in her own voice. She doesn't want to know what is on the other side. She can't handle it.

Normally, Caroline makes a living off of proving people who tell her that she can't do something that she, in fact, can - or at least try to - but this felt different. It felt different from anger or self-depreciation. It felt like a warning. She was strong enough to break through this wall but she wasn't ready for the sacrifice she would have to make in order to do it. She wouldn't be sacrificing her behind the wall. Maybe later, but not now.

Caroline's mind did the best that it could to piece together what happened tonight, and the last few days - but when she focused too much on the nagging element of something missing, she ran into that wall. And the horrible secrets that lie beyond, calling out like a siren for her to remember. Taunting. Threatening.

Terrified, Caroline backed away.

The beaten and bruised blonde pulls herself up to her feet and turns the spray off. She crawls out of the shower, wrapping up in a towel and heading into her bedroom. She changes into her comfiest pajama pants and a large graphic t-shirt that used to be her dad's before he moved out, trying to absorb any and all comfort that she can from it, before basically falling into bed. Her exhaustion, beyond bone-deep, forces her to sleep before her head even touches the pillow.

Caroline feels like she closed her eyes for only a second before something soothing pulls her into awareness, if only slightly.

"You weren't answering your phone," Liz says softly, running her fingers through Caroline's hair. It's pitch black out still, which makes it hard for Caroline to open her eyes and not slowly slip back to sleep. "I was so scared."

"Mom..?" Caroline rasps, her throat burning but she doesn't remember why. Maybe from cheering so loud?

"Shh, honey," Liz says softly. "You're home and you're safe, that's all I care about. But I am worried about you. You haven't been yourself lately. Stay home from school tomorrow. I'll call the school for you in the morning."

Lacking all the energy to open her eyes let alone fight to go to school, Caroline just hums softly and whispers, "Okay..."

Just then, Liz's radio goes off on her shoulder. It's loud and staticky, but Caroline can barely make out words like, 'hospital' and 'critical condition' before it dies down to silence. Caroline turns slightly toward her mother, barely able to open her eyes. "What..?"

"Sleep," Liz says, kissing her hair. "I have to go back to work. I'll see you in the morning."

Caroline mumbles incoherently before curling around her pillow with the feeling of Liz's loving ministrations being the last thing on her mind as she falls back into peaceful darkness.

Caroline wakes up screaming as this intense, fiery pain courses through her body like being struck by lightning. She sits up in bed, barely able to notice that it's still pitch black out in her room. The pain was sudden and terrifying. So much so that her heart is pounding loudly in her chest.

"M-Mom..?" Caroline calls into the darkness of the house but there is silence. If Liz was home, she would be in Caroline's room in a heartbeat. Despite how tired she was, Liz was always a light sleeper. Liz must still not be home.

Suddenly, Caroline's spine cracks, making her contort as a broken sob rips from her raw throat like a bullet. It feels like her bones are on fire. And for a split second after her spine cracks, Caroline freezes both in pain and terror at the thought that she just broke her own spine. For no apparent reason.

Caroline screams, her spine cracking back in place as her eyes hone in on the face in the full-length mirror stare back at her. The face of some sort of scary monster with glowing golden eyes. Caroline was so utterly terrified that she couldn't even look over her shoulder at the beast hoving over her. She just squeezed her eyes shut, sobbing, waiting for the pain to end. Bones cracking and splintering a bit before crunching back into place.

And then nothing.

Caroline counts two slow, pained breaths as her body thrums in exhaustion and pain before opening her eyes to stare back at the mirror. But what she sees is the golden eyes staring back, before they fade into the darkness of her own face. Her eyes... no, it couldn't have been. Her eyes couldn't have changed color.

Could it?

Tentatively, Caroline reaches up to touch her face before pulling away. Her skin is clammy and feverish at the same time, making her sink back into her bed. As the terror ebbs away to disbelief her mind forcefully shuts down.

It takes Caroline staring at the ceiling of her bedroom for almost four solid minutes before she started to register her life around her. She's in her home. She's in her bedroom. She's tired. Her body hurts but it's more of a soft thumping of her muscles. Of ghost pains from something, she doesn't recall.

Caroline lifts up her hands to look at them, and for a moment, she sees blood and bruises, but she gasps, blinks and it's just her own hands in front of her face. Her knuckles look a little discolored but other than that, they look normal. She presses on them, the knuckles, her fingers, her palms, but aside from soft, phantom pain, her hands feel normal.

She sits up slowly, her body aching but otherwise okay. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and rests her elbows on her knees and lowers her head, feeling this exhaustion that she knows has been perpetually feeling for weeks. It stresses her bones and pulls taught at her muscles. She has absolutely no strength in her body. Every motion feels like she's pushing through concrete. Willpower is the only thing that pushes Caroline to her feet and into her attached bathroom. She turns the light on and looks at herself in the mirror, placing her hands on the sink to hold herself up.

She feels tired and her body only kind of hurts, but she looks ghastly. Her skin is pale and lifeless. There are horrible dark circles around her eyes. Her cheeks are gaunt and her eyes are sunken in. She looks as horrible as she feels. Caroline stares into her bloodshot blue eyes and she hates what she sees. There is this dark, twisted angry little piece of her. She reaches up with a pale, shaking hand and pulls down the collar of her shirt expecting to see... something. But she's not sure what she expected to see.

Caroline doesn't want to go to school. Sure, it's Friday, but she just doesn't want to go. She can't go. She's not the type to typically skip out on things but today... today just doesn't feel like the day. She can't do it today. She doesn't have any strength in her. She needs these three days to really decompress. She's not sure what weight has been hanging over her, but she needs to get away from it.

Then, blissfully, Caroline remembers Liz's words from last night. She can stay home today. Relief washes over Caroline as she pushes away from the sink to head back into her bedroom. She crawls under the covers and closes her eyes, letting the exhaustion take her once more. She curls up on her side, with her back to the window, letting her body relax.

Caroline doesn't dream, which is good. Something tells her that her dreams would be filled with nightmares. She's not sure why, but there is something in the pit of her gut that is absolutely terrified. So she doesn't want to dream. She wants to sleep, but she doesn't want dreams. Constructs created by the mind to explain the void in the darkness of her mind are scary.

So thankfully, she doesn't dream.

Stunned, Caroline sits in bed, watching the news about last night. About Mr. Tanner. The news anchor, Logan Fell, explains about a vicious attack at last night's football game that left Mr. Tanner beaten and bruised so badly that he was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. He died late in the night. His injuries were too great.

Caroline watches the news in silence. Something... something dark and scary nagging away at the back of her mind but she doesn't chase it. Doesn't look at it beyond the wall. She's too scared to go beyond that wall. So she backs away. She can't face that.

There is a very impressive shot from the night before of Elena and Bonnie, standing side-by-side amongst a crowd of people watching the scene in front of them. Neither of them seems to notice that the camera pointed at them for a moment, but there was something about Bonnie's face as she looked around. She was taking in everything around her and the horror that dances across her face makes Caroline want to slip into the television screen and hug her best friend, tell her that it's alright. That it's all alright.

And tragically beautiful Elena is staring on with this pinched expression, dark eyes even darker in the night as she watches the scene. Caroline recognizes that pain on her face. The death of her parents has been so hard on her. Caroline also wants to hug her. Even though Elena is putting on a brave face, Caroline can tell how much she is hurting.

But she doesn't move. She just sits in bed, staring vacant-eyed at her friends, wondering if she was the only one that noticed if something was missing. She wasn't sure where the train of thought was trying to take her but it was definitely depressing her.

She shakes the feeling away, turning onto her side and curling up in her bed, too exhausted to think.

A knock at the door wakes Caroline up. The blonde immediately hates herself for taking another nap. She feels gross and lethargic. She combs her hands through her hair before giving up and pulling it up into a bun on the top of her head.

She drags herself out of her room and down the hall toward the front door. She opens it to see Matt standing in the doorway. Caroline stares at him, blinking a few times slowly, before tilting her head to the side and mumbling, "Uhh?"

"Hey," Matt says offering a little wave before holding out her gym bag to her. "You just disappeared last night and left your bag. Tiki asked me to bring it back to you."

Caroline looks down at the bag like it was a foreign object, trying to get her mind to remember how she could have left her bag at the school. Her car keys were in it. How could she have gotten home without it?

Pain stabs at the center of Caroline's forehead, making her flinch. Through squinted eyes, Caroline looks over at the driveway to see that it was just her mom's personal vehicle. Both Liz's police cruiser and Caroline's car were gone. Did... someone take her home? Why doesn't she remember how she got home?

"Uh, thanks," Caroline mumbles, rubbing her sore throat before reaching out for her bag. She takes it from him and the weight of it is too much for her jelly arm to be able to handle, so it just falls down to her side. "Thanks, Matt. But you didn't have to bring this back to my house. You could have given it to Bonnie or Elena."

Matt shrugs his shoulders, pretty blu eyes looking between her and the bag, his lips pressing together a bit. "It's okay. I already had it and with how crazy everything was last night..." a worried look flickers across his face. He shakes his head, forcing it away. "Plus we couldn't find you anywhere. We were worried."

"You were?" Caroline asks dumbly, blue eyes wide.

Matt nods. "Yeah, Ty, Tiki, and I were looking for you. We ran into Sheriff Forbes and she said that you had gone home. I completely forgot to just give her your bag, sorry."

"Oh," Caroline says, looking down at the bag. "Don't worry about it, Matt. Thanks for bringing it to me. I appreciate it."

Matt nods and they lapse into silence for three long, painfully awkward seconds before Matt says, "Are you okay, Caroline?"

Caroline gives him a surprised look. They've known each other forever but they weren't exactly friends. They were friendly, but not really friends. But Caroline always liked Matt. She liked how sweet he was. How caring and kind he was. But they just didn't really move beyond friendly acquaintances. Because Matt was all of those things and Caroline wasn't. She was selfish and superficial. Enough people have called her that for her to know it as painfully true.

"I'm okay," Caroline says softly. "Why do you ask?"

Matt shrugs, looking down at his shuffling feet for a moment before looking back up to Caroline's eyes. "I don't know. You just haven't seemed like yourself. I know we aren't close or anything and you certainly don't have to talk to me, but maybe you should talk to someone. I know that things have been weird for all of us this year, but you should try talking to Elena and Bonnie. I'm sure they are worried about you."

Caroline stares at Matt for a long moment, wondering how terrible she must really look for him to be saying all of this before a small, tentative smile works its way across her lips. "Thanks, Matt. I just... haven't been feeling well these last few days. I'm trying to catch up on some rest and hopefully be fully recharged by Monday. So don't worry about me."

Matt looks back down at his feet, a flicker of worry passing over his face while he nods slowly. "I'll... uh, catch you later then, Caroline. Feel better."

"Thanks," Caroline says softly, hefting the bag up over her shoulder. "And thanks for bringing this back." She pats her bag and smiles thinly. She offers him a little wave as he heads back toward his car. She waits for him to get into it before she closes the door to her home and walks back into her bedroom. She drops her bag onto her bed and opens it up, finding all of the stuff she put in there yesterday still in there. Her wallet, car and house keys, clothes from yesterday, spare uniform, shoes, phone, charger, feminine products, deodorant, shampoo, body wash, and towel.

Caroline pulls out her phone, clicking some buttons but the screen isn't turning on. She grabs the charger and plugs it into the wall and attaches her phone to it and laying it down on her bedside table. She goes back into the kitchen and makes herself a bowl of cereal before walking back into her room, crawling into bed, and watches some show she used to watch a few years ago in silence until she was done with her bowl. She brought her bowl back to the kitchen and put it into the sink before heading back to her room. She shut the door and curled up in bed, grabbing at her phone and turning it on.

She waits for it to power up before all of her phone calls and messages started coming through. A lot of phone calls from her mom. One from Bonnie, with a voice mail, the same with Elena, and two from different girls on the team. Then a dozen text messages from a slew of people all wondering where she was and if she was okay. Asking if she knew about what happened with Mr. Tanner.

She takes the time to text everyone back, just letting them all know that she was okay and just wasn't feeling well after the game last night so that she just came straight home. She sends the same message to everyone before calling her mom, laying her head down onto the pillow, and listens to the soft ringing.

After the third ring, Liz answers, "Hey sweetie, how are you feeling?"

"Tired," Caroline admits. "I don't feel great."

"I'm sorry," Liz says honestly, "I'm just about done here. Do you want me to bring you home some food?"

A small smile tugs at the corner of Caroline's lips, thinking back to how easy this once was. How this used to be their lives before her father left. How simple and platonic it all was. She's missed this for a long time. Despite how mean she's been to her mother, Liz's love for her hasn't changed a bit. And Caroline is so deeply grateful. Through all the darkness and the scary things that are hidden behind that wall, Caroline can feel something else. She can feel Liz. She can feel her mother's love for her, like a beacon of light in the dark.

And for the first time in a long time, Caroline is finally starting to somewhat feel better. And it's all because of Liz, who knew?

"I just ate," Caroline says. "I left my bag at the stadium, Matt just brought it back for me."

"Matt Donovan?" Liz asks.

"Yeah."

"Ah," she says, then hums to herself. "He's a good boy. I hope you thanked him."

Caroline scoffs, rolling her eyes. "It may not seem like it, but I do actually have basic manners, thank you very much."

Liz lets out a little, surprised laugh. No doubt not expecting Caroline to banter with her mother, as it feels like a lifetime since that bridge has been crossed between them. Caroline knows how it got here, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't regret it. Caroline and her mother used to be so close. Her father leaving them was probably the worst thing that could have happened to them.

But Caroline is finally ready to stop being mad. There is this exhaustion that has been following her around for so long and this has to be one of those things that have to stop. She has to be nicer because she hates hurting her mother so badly. She wants to be mad and she wants someone to feel her pain - but not right now. Not anymore. She's done sacrificing whatever time she has with her mother destroying the relationship that they have. It's not fair to either of them.

"I was just making sure," Liz says, mirth in her voice. "I'll be home in a little bit, alright?"

"Okay," Caroline says softly. "Bye."

"Bye, sweetie." Click.

Caroline places her phone back onto her bedside table and curls up around her pillow, letting the exhaustion take her once more. She's going to wreck her sleeping schedule, but at least maybe she can break away bits and pieces of the perpetual exhaustion that has been hanging off of her for so long.

In her dreams, she's haunted by ghostly golden eyes following her through the darkness.


	5. Full Moon

Author's Note: Hello, my loves! I'm sorry about the long wait! I just adore hearing from all of you, so thank you for taking the time! I hope that everyone is having a good December so far and I hope that you all have wonderful holidays! Let me know what you think! Enjoy!

Caroline slept her weekend away. Throughout all of it, her exhaustion was beyond bone-deep. She just didn't have any energy to keep her head up off of the bed for very long throughout the whole weekend. Caroline doesn't give herself time to wonder what's wrong with her. It's been kind of interesting. Not good, obviously, with the death of Mr. Tanner, but Caroline had been hearing about his death blowing up on the internet. And over the weekend, Bonnie and Elena blowing up too. The shot that people have been talking about in regards to Mr. Tanner was taken from last year, coaching out on the field, and directly behind him, in perfect view, as if flanking him was Elena and Bonnie, clear as day.

They were in the middle of posing, bright-eyed, smiling, and beautiful and people were talking. Between them, hidden perfectly behind Mr. Tanner, was Caroline. She knew this routine, knew this placement, and knew that the spot she was supposed to be, at that moment, was directly behind him. And a part of Caroline was relieved by it. The last thing she would want was to be immortalized in a freeze-frame of a routine for a man that died. Bonnie and Elena definitely had Caroline's deepest sympathies.

Once Monday rolls around, Caroline gets up, gets dressed, makes sure she eats, and shoves past the heavyweight that's holding her down to get to school. She made sure she left early, remembering that she left her car at school and she was going to have to walk. Liz had offered to drive her, but Caroline declined, wanting to walk instead.

She needed the fresh air and hopes that it would help make her feel better. She sucks in the fresh morning air as deep into her lungs as it can go, feeling lighter with each passing moment. It's nice to be able to get out of the house and away from her bed. She knows that she can't stay in bed all day - like she did all weekend - even though she really wants to. She knows she has to get up, though. She could only sell being sick for the weekend but it all has to come to an end.

But she was so tired, all weekend. She just didn't have the energy to do anything. The most she could do was pull herself into the living room to watch a movie with her mom - which they hadn't done in forever and Liz was pleasantly surprised over - but then she went right back to bed. And despite all the sleep that she's been getting, she still feels this perpetual exhaustion hanging over her. An overwhelming lethargy that she can't seem to work her way through. It doesn't lessen, it doesn't go away, it doesn't stop, and she's not sure why.

She forces the feeling away, opting to do something that always made her feel better. Singing. She just... sings random snippets of songs that catch her fancy as she walks down the quiet morning streets as Mystic Falls slowly awakens for the day. She doesn't sing loud, just a whisper under her breath, or humming softly as she crosses the streets toward her school, having walked these streets about a million times over the course of her life. All sorts of songs. Lullabies, songs from her childhood, and even some more recent. Anything to occupy her thoughts.

Anything was better than giving thought to the exhaustion beyond bone-deep. She needed something else to focus on. Even if she was putting a simple band-aid on a stab wound. She needed something else more than anything.

So she sings, and she hums. Songs like Marry had a little lamb and that new song that she really liked. That Miley Cyrus song, The Climb too.

"My faith is shaking but I... gotta keep trying..." Caroline trails off, her feet turning to lead. She hears the bottom of her feet scrape against the concrete beneath her, peeling the top layer off of the bottom of her shoe. This feeling comes over her so strong she felt her muscles all lock up.

Fear. This stomach-lurching, bone-chilling, heart-stopping fear that roots her into place.

Her blood roars in her ears as she is brought back in time when the world was darker, walking down the street heading to her home. It was scarier then. But not as lonely as it feels right now. There wasn't as much fear, there wasn't as much pain, there wasn't as much... knowledge. She didn't know then what she was so scared of - and even though she can't put into words now what it is that she knows, she knows that she knows it. Deep down. Deep beneath... beneath the... beneath the choking... the screaming... beneath the...

Behind the brick wall.

Yes, the demons lie there, behind the scary wall. Not beneath anything. Not...

A loud horn makes Caroline jump, her heart leaping into her chest as she turns to look at the car right next to her. The man inside waving his hands around, gesturing for her to move out of the way. It's then that she realizes that she's stopped in the middle of the road. Caroline stares at her reflection on the windshield. Her eyes hone in past herself to the man and the light catches his face just right, dark hair, bright blue eyes. And a flash, an image of someone she doesn't want to imagine crosses her mind, stabbing at it painfully, with just the picture alone.

That terror awakens in her once more, pushing her forward. Caroline's flight instinct kicks her square in the back and gets her running straight for the school. Once she gets there, her feet take her straight to the near-empty parking lot - only the most diligent of students and the necessary staff are already there - to her own car on the backside of the building, where she left it on Thursday when she went over to the stadium with Elena and Bonnie.

She fumbles with her keys wildly until she manages to find the one she needs, jams it into the lock, opens the door, and crawls in, leaving all of her other things - purse, backpack, and gym bag, on the floor of the parking lot, slamming the door behind herself and locking it before falling into complete silence. Then she sits there, staring out the front windshield trying to sift through the pieces of herself that shook loose. There... there is something behind that wall in her mind. Something terrifying and ferocious, clawing away at this barrier that separates them.

The thin layers separating her from the outside world only offers her a minuscule bit of comfort. She doesn't want to be here. She doesn't want to do this. She wants to run. Run as far and as fast away from this as humanly possible. She can't do this. She can't be here. She can't face the things that sit beyond the confines of her own car. Out there is scary. Out there is evil. Everything out there wants to hurt her. Everything out there wants to break apart the fragile pieces of her soul that she is hardly holding together from something so utterly horrible she is too scared to remember.

This is her life now. This horrible, paralyzing fear keeps her rooted in place. Perhaps not of the body, not always, but of the mind. Of the soul. She is trapped here, in this place. And she feels an inch tall.

And it terrifies her. So she sits there, listening to her panting breaths, rapidly beating heart as her eyes mist up, feeling this terror clenching at her chest so tightly she's afraid to breathe too deeply for fear of what it might do. And while she sits there, paralyzed in terror, she can feel something else bubbling up inside of her. Something that begs for release that she's not sure how to give.

All she knows is that inside... inside, she screams.

It takes a knock at her window to pull Caroline out of her catatonic state. She jumps, turning wide, frantic eyes toward the window to see Matt standing on the other side with Tyler a few steps away, staring in at her.

"W...what?" Caroline asks.

Matt makes a motion for her to come out of the car. Caroline takes a few deep breaths to slow down her heart before she opens her car door and steps out, adjusting her shirt and jeans to busy her clammy hands.

"What... um, what is it?" Caroline asks, turning her eyes toward Matt to see his face twisted in concern.

"Are you okay?" He asks.

"Yeah," Caroline says, hoping he can't hear the quivering in her voice. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

Matt raises his eyebrows a bit and turns to look down at the concrete around her car to see all of her stuff strewn about, tossed half-hazardously to the ground when she was desperately trying to get her car door open. She looks around to see the parking lot is getting pretty filled up, and when she digs her phone from her pocket to look at the time to see that she's been sitting in her car for over forty-five minutes and it felt like not a single moment passed for Caroline.

"Oh," Caroline says, leaning down and picking up her stuff, which Matt is quick to help with. "I'm fine," She says, glancing at him to see him staring as he helps gather her things. "I'm fine."

"Okay," Matt says, offering a little nod. "Do you need help carrying everything to your locker?"

Caroline shakes her head, taking her purse from him, and stands up. "I'm okay. Thanks, Matt."

She juggles everything in her arms before closing her car door and heading for the school while keeping her head down. She can hear people in the hall around her talking about Elena and Bonnie on the internet. About Mr. Tanner dying at the football game. And the manner of his death, too. Some say he was attacked by an animal. The one that her mother had warned them about. Some say that it was someone getting back at him for being the worst teacher... the worst type of man.

Caroline has to block it out by straining her ears and walking faster. Normally she would have her ears to the ground, listening to all the gossip going around but she just can't. Not here. Not today.

Caroline goes to her locker and tosses in everything she doesn't need into it, before grabbing onto her gym bag and heading to the gym to put her bag in that locker. Anything else to occupy her mind, to keep her moving. All she could do was able to do was walk very quickly and keep her head down, only half-listening to people talk about Mr. Tanner's death and the memorial that is being planned for him. Caroline planned a good portion of it from her bed over the weekend, feeling like she owed it to him.

She's not sure why, but she felt that she did. So she helped from behind the scenes.

"It's gonna be a full moon."

Caroline jumps, turning wide blue eyes to the person standing next to her. It's Tiki. She offers Caroline a sideways look. Caroline looks around the near-empty locker room, trying to will her racing heart to slow down. She sucks in a deep breath before asking, "What?"

Tiki raised an eyebrow. "Mr. Tanner's memorial at the park? It's going to be a full moon. Fitting, don't you think?"

"Um, yeah," Caroline says, wrapping her arms around herself. "Ironically, I wrote a paper about the full moon and its connections to past historical events. Honestly, it was more befitting of a psych class, but he called it trash and unrelatable."

Tiki huffs, quirking her eyebrow, haughtily. "I know, girl. I was sitting next to you while he went on his tangent. Fifteen long minutes of him ripping you a new one. I wanted so badly to walk out."

Caroline runs her hand through her messy blonde hair, shaking her head while looking down at her shoes. "Yeah, imagine how I felt."

Tiki shrugs. "I feel bad that Mr. Tanner died, but he was not a nice man and he was a horrible teacher. This memorial is... definitely going to be an interesting one, but at least the night is going to be pretty."

"Sure," Caroline says, scratching at her arms again, still unable to fight the growing feeling of ants crawling beneath her skin. She's had it with growing persistence since the game Friday night. It makes her anxious and tired and, for some reason, achy.

But that is one of the three hundred things going on with her right now that she's going to pretend isn't happening to her. That she isn't wondering what it is or if she's okay. Maybe this will be good for her - both school and this service tonight. It gives her time to focus on anything other than herself. Or as a way of just focusing on anything at all.

So, Caroline sat zoned out throughout the day, barely focusing on anything in class. And considering what happened, the teachers were offering everyone a bit of leniency, so no one held Caroline responsible for not answering the three times she was called upon in her morning classes as she just stared out the windows next to her. They would call for her, stare at her while she would just keep looking out the window for a few moments, before moving on to someone else who was a bit more aware

"Are you okay?"

Caroline, who was staring at the pathetic excuse for chicken nuggets since lunch started, looks over at Elena. She stared back at her with her pretty, dark brown eyes soft with worry. Bonnie wasn't there. Either she wasn't going to be joining them or she hasn't managed to make it there yet.

"Huh?" Caroline says, scooting a nugget across the trey disinterested.

"Matt cornered me this morning. He's worried about you," Elena says softly, leaning on the table a bit to get a better look at Caroline's face. "He said that you looked like a zombie sitting in your car unmoving. Are you alright?"

Caroline blinks slowly, running a hand through her hair. "I'm okay..."

Elena raises her eyebrows, staring right at the side of Caroline's head. "Care, come on. I know you. You've been zoned out all day. Is this about Mr. Tanner? I didn't know that you were close to him."

Caroline shakes her head, looking back over at Elena. "I'm not close to him."

Elena tucks a loose strand of long brown hair behind her ear, leaning back a bit more comfortably. "We were all there the night of the game, and you just vanished afterward. What happened?"

"I just went home."

Elena's eyebrows pull together tightly as she tilts her head to the side. "Without saying anything to anyone?"

"I wasn't feeling well..." Caroline says, not sure if it was a lie or not.

Elena stares at her hard as if trying to decide if she believed Caroline or not. Or if she was willing to push it to see what the blonde would say about it if pressed. She decides against it and asks instead, "When was the last time you saw Mr. Tanner?"

Caroline's skin breaks out in a cold sweat. Her hands grow clammy as this sinking feeling settles in her gut, and something tugs at her mind from beyond the wall. Something dark and twisty. There is a scary, dark monster on the other side of that wall, and just thinking about that makes her feel terrified. Makes her feel like a caged animal prepared for slaughter. The trepidation and fear are like ice-cold chills up and down her spine.

She can hear Mr. Tanner's voice in her mind, but it sounds like he's underwater. Or maybe her head is underwater... she's not sure. It's muffled and distant, though. But there is an urgency to his voice. There's fear. Something is wrong. Something is scary. Something is gentle luring her to the wall in her mind once more. The answers are somewhere behind it, but they are shrouded in darkness and fear, wrapped in barbed wire. If she was going to go there, she needed to be a lot stronger than she was now. But maybe... maybe she could claw her way back to the surface of the wat-

No, it's a wall. Not... not the water. There is no water. Just a large, harmless wall keeping all the bad and the scary away.

"I don't know..." Caroline mumbles, feeling all the color drain from her body as she turns wide blue eyes toward her best friend. "I... I don't know." Panic starts to build up in her chest and she knows she has to say something. She has to at least try to explain it to Elena. If she says some of the words then maybe they won't be inside her anymore, threatening to choke the life from her. Caroline wraps her arms around herself, both from the cold of her body and because it's all she can think to do to hold the pieces of herself together. "Elena... I need to tell you someth-"

"Hey."

Caroline and Elena both look to see Stefan standing by their table, his hands stuffed into his jean pockets.

"Hey," Elena says, twisting around to face him. "You suddenly vanished the other day. I called about a hundred times, I was worried about you. Where did you go?"

Stefan's lips part, the words, "I had a bit of a family emergency," slide easily from his mouth before a pair of pretty green eyes turn to Caroline and she feels terror like a dagger to the chest.

Staring into his eyes, Caroline can feel her heart beating like a drum in her chest, pounding away at her chest plate as her blood roars in her ears and she feels it again. For the second time that day. A paralyzing terror that forces her body into conflicting feels of fight or flight. Her body so badly wants to run away but the muscles tense up so much that she can't even move. His green eyes study her face, eyebrows pulling together as his lips part slowly, her name forming on them before her flight instinct finally overpowers her frozen muscles.

Without saying goodbye, Caroline pops to her feet and runs away, runs as far and as fast as she can.

She doesn't remember running through the halls of the school and only really comes to at the sound of a slamming classroom door. The lights are off with only the sun from outside offering any light into the room. Caroline sinks to the floor with her back against the door and pulls her legs to her chest and wraps her arms around them.

She feels like she should be a choking, slobbering, bawling mess of a person, but instead, she sits in the dim room quietly, terrified to even breathe too loud, and stares off out the window to the bright world beyond. So close, yet somehow so terribly far away. Her body shivers from a chill she can't shake and her eyes burn from tears she can't shed. She doesn't move from that spot for the rest of the school day.

Caroline wanted to go home. She helped plan the memorial service for Mr. Tanner in the park that the community showed up to, but she didn't want to be there. If she had left that room just a minute later, she wouldn't have run right into Tiki who would have insisted that they go over to the park together to help set up. Then she could have just gone home and crawled into bed. She didn't want to move anymore, she could hardly bring herself to think. She sat in that classroom unmoving for hours. Her back, legs, neck, and arms were killing her. But even all of those were eclipsed by her hips. Sitting like that for so long without moving an inch. She was hurting now, but she was definitely going to be feeling it tomorrow.

Caroline made sure to provide the volunteers with all the information that they needed to set everything up for the service, but didn't do it with her normal - no doubt annoying - brand of zest and nitpick. She just nodded at everything that was shown to her for approval and just stared off into the nothingness when nothing immediately caught her attention.

Eventually, people started to show up and Caroline was relieved to tell Tiki to take care of everything and disappear into the bustling crowd. She was finally starting to pull back into herself, despite her mounting anxiety, and tries to clear her mind. She's not sure why she ran away earlier when Stefan showed up, but she's not ready to face Elena and Bonnie - who Elena no doubt told about her odd behavior - and whatever good, honest questions, and concerns they no doubt have. She just wants to forget. She wants so badly to forget. She can't not forget. She needs to. She's barely holding herself together as it is.

So a nice way to occupy her mind was to keep an eye out for her friends and avoid them like the plague as more and more people filled up the park in honor of Mr. Tanner. She spotted Bonnie once, talking with Tiki. She saw Elena three times, once with Matt, once with Stefan and Jeremy, and once with her aunt, Jenna. Caroline managed to avoid her all three times. Caroline made sure to catch her mom's eye as the sheriff and her deputies monitored the gathering and also came to pay their respects and offered her a little wave before disappearing into the crowd.

The sky darkened and everyone started lighting up their candle cups in his honor but Caroline couldn't. As the Mayor and the Principal stood up on the stage giving heartfelt speeches about how good a man and an educator that Mr. Tanner was, Caroline couldn't stop hearing him screaming in her ears. These horrible, painful, gut-wrenching screams made Caroline sick to her stomach and made her hands start to shake and grow clammy once more.

Then, she saw him. She saw him standing at the edge of the crowd watching carefully with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket. He stood as still as a statue, staring out over the crowd with bright blue, disinterested eyes. And all the terror that Caroline has been feeling on and off all day today hits her a thousand times harder than ever before.

This time, her body didn't get the chance to lock up before she's spinning on her heel, running away as fast as she can. Her eyes are blown wide in terror but she can't see anything as she runs away. Something sharp whips across her cheek but she barely feels it. She has to jump over something and scrapes her hands as she goes, and it's not until something strong catches around her ankle that tosses her to the ground that she finally pulls back into her body. Her chin scrapes the ground and her nose is buried in the dirt when she pushes herself up.

The forest. She ran into the forest. Caroline takes a few huge gulps of air as she looks around, trying to orient herself once more to make her way home. She showed her face, people saw her, she paid her respects, she's going home. Now.

She looks around, sweating profuse bullets and her body hurts. Despite the cool night air as they slowly transition from fall to winter, Caroline's skin is burning like a fire is flowing through her veins. Through the thick trees, the full moon beats down at her, offering her enough light for her eyes to be able to see somewhat within the darkness. It's quiet. She can't hear the gathering in the park, so she must have made it pretty far away in that memory lapse. It would explain why her whole body is aching more than it did before.

She dusts off her hands and face from the dirt and moves to stand but as soon as it does, a shooting pain runs up and down her right leg and she crumbles to the ground in a loud yelp of pain that accompanied a sickening snap. Caroline, figuring she must have someone twisted her leg wrong when she went to stand, but when she looked down at it. The horror of seeing her own shin bone snapped in two and pressing tight against her skin made her vomit, almost immediately. She twisted to the side and puked stomach acid. She hasn't eaten anything all day.

Then, her shin snaps back into place and this burning, agonizing pain washes over her.

"Wha...what?" Caroline chokes out as her arm, the one she's leaning on, cracks in two and she collapses into the dirt, probably getting vomit into her hair. Caroline barely has a second to focus on that before bones across her entire body begin to break and set in rapid succession. Caroline rolls around in the dirt and twigs and screams in agony, not able to understand what is happening to her.

Writhing in the dirt in agony, Caroline can hear herself sobbing hysterically as she tries desperately to hold herself together. Absolutely everything hurts. Her head, her bones, her muscles - which she's tightened up instinctively and it only hurts more - and her heart. It feels like it's going to explode in her chest. She feels like she is actually tearing apart at the seams and she can't do anything to stop it. All she can do is scream and cry and writhe.

Her mind, desperate to hold the shattered pieces of herself together, tries to cling to something good. Anything good. Something that she could focus on that wasn't this horrible breaking and splintering and cracking across all parts of her body, and the sounds of her own screaming in her ears. First, her mind goes to her best friends. Who never ceased to make her happy ad be pillars of joy in her life.

They offered her no comfort.

Then she thought of the father that she has always adored, but remembered, painfully, how much of a price she paid for thinking that way. And the price was the only person that did in fact bring her comfort.

Liz.

Her mother has always been there for her even when Caroline was too bad of a person to notice and too terrible of a daughter to acknowledge. Caroline never truly gave credence to Liz's love and affection that she offered without asking for an ounce of it in return and Caroline will regret that for the rest of her life. Especially since now, in this moment of unbelievable terror and agony, certain that she is going to die, Caroline doesn't want Elena or Bonnie or Bill. Caroline wants Liz.

"Mommy!" Caroline sobs, reaching out to the darkness in front of her like Liz was hiding just on the other side of it. "Mommy, please!" Cracks work down Caroline's spine like they are piano keys and all Caroline can do is beg and scream for her mom, hoping that just by thinking of her, Liz's tremendous strength will seep into Caroline and help her survive this.

Because she doesn't think she will. She doesn't think she can. And if she dies here and no, there is only one person in the world that she wants by her side. The only person who has always loved her. She wants Liz. She wants to go back in time to when she was young and could curl up into the arms of her mother and pretend that all the horrible, nasty evils of the world could get to her. What she wouldn't give to go back to when she was five years old and that was her reality?

Caroline's mind, blinded by pain and fear, begins to turn fuzzy as her entire perceptions start to change and her bones stop cracking back into the same shape they were when they broke. She's going to die. There is no way that she's going to survive whatever it is that is happening to her. No one could survive something like this. And the one person that she wants to see, her own mother, the last thing that she did was offer her a half-hearted wave. She didn't even go to speak to her because she knew Liz would know something was wrong and Caroline was too much of a coward to face it.

And that'll be it. That'll be the last memory that Liz has of her ungrateful daughter alive. A simple wave before vanishing into the crowd.

Caroline begs for her mother, through snot and tears until she can't even recognize her own voice behind the sounds of an animal growling and snarling. Howling in agony.

And then nothing. For the first time in months, the perpetual screaming in Caroline's mind finally, finally tappers off into silence.


	6. All to Dust

It doesn't sound right. It doesn't taste right. It doesn't smell right. Nothing seems right. It's all twisted and distorted. The field of vision is too... is too... it just doesn't seem right. Everything comes in snippets. The ground is too close. The smell of forestry and dirt. There is a primal part of her brain that loves this smell, this sight, this feeling. Caroline feels so completely disconnected from this other thing. This whatever-it-is that somehow has control of her body... it's scary. It's violent. It's unnatural. She feels this massive disconnect from it.

She can only remember snippets of thoughts and memories that are a jumbled, garbled mess that is impossible to piece together. She feels like she was there in the present, not really in control, but observing something else piloting her body. But as she began the transformation back into herself, with all the breaking bones and cries of pain, and then nothing. All the memories she vaguely had from the night before slip away into the deepest parts of the back of her mind.

In fact, most of the night was gone. She could only remember snippets of her running away from the memorial service for Mr. Tanner and into the woods. She remembered that she was terrified, that she had to get away or she might just die. Then she remembers being in pain, crying, and begging for someone to help her and then... and then... nothing.

Although Caroline felt horribly violated waking up naked outdoors with next to no memory of how this could have happened. Luckily she awakened bright and early in the morning and she was near the local junkie escape ground. She had to tip-toe around needles and cigarette buds to grab hold of a huge, discarded sweatshirt that stuck so bad that Caroline's nose crinkled in disgust, but it was better than running through the streets naked.

She reached her house in what feels like record time, scrapping up the bottoms of her feet, pulling at the stitch in her side, burning her lungs, and making her very aware of the less than favorable situation her body is in. She's filthy - and that's before the nasty junky sweatshirt became the only option for her to run home with some scrapes of her dignity still intact - covered in dirt and mud and there is a distinct taste of iron in her mouth.

She ran inside, not bothering for even a moment to see if her mother was even home before running into her bedroom, going for her attached bathroom, throwing the sweatshirt into a corner on the floor, and jumping into the shower. She turns it on without a thought, tensing up as she's blasted with ice-cold water, sucking the air out of her lungs.

She drops down into the fetal position as the water goes from ice cold to steaming hot down her back. She sits under the spray, unmoving, for a very long time. Her eyes closed while she rests her forehead on her knees, and her arms wrapped around her thighs. Caroline sits there for a long time under the spray, trying to fully pull herself back into her own body after the ordeal that she went through. Despite the boiling hot water pouring down her back, Caroline can feel her hands trembling against her thighs.

She parts her thighs a bit to look at her own hands to see them dirty with mud-caked under her nails. Caroline pulls her hand up, quickly cleaning under the nails to get the mud out. Then she washes the dirt off her hands, then her body. She grabs the bar of soap and starts washing her body over and over and over again, clearing the mud and the marks away as much as she can, until the marks on her skin vanish into an irritated red as she scrubs herself raw all over her body. To get rid of the phantom pain, the marks, and the fading memories. Oh, and that nasty junky sweatshirt. She washed her body about seven times more than was absolutely necessary.

She didn't stop scrubbing until her skin tingled painfully against the hot water. Caroline, lastly, lathers shampoo into her hair nice and thorough, letting it settle for a few moments. Once she did, she folds herself back into the fetal position and drops herself beneath the spray. After a few minutes, she reaches up and starts rubbing away at her scalp, washing away the shampoo.

She stayed under the spray long after her fingers pruned up.

Finally, she had to get out. Caroline pushes herself to her feet, turns off the shower, and steps out. She grabs her towel, wrapping it around herself, and heading back into her room. She quickly changes into leggings and a t-shirt. She dries her hair slowly with a towel while sitting on her bed, staring out the window with a vacant-eyed stare.

Her mind tries to grasp at the threads of what happened the night before. The gnashing teeth, the blood, the feeling and the sound of breaking bones, the image of the man... it all starts to pull back behind the wall. Where all the scary stuff goes. She doesn't forget the pieces, but the scary parts of them connect to the other side of the wall. It scares her to pull at it too much. If she tries to remember too much, the fear... the terror that grips at her heart when anything pertaining to stuff behind the wall are thought about or gently probed at.

It's scary. Too scary. She can't face that. She's afraid to face it. She's not strong enough.

Distantly, Caroline hears the sound of a door opening and closing. The sound of footsteps going through the house, drawing closer. Liz stops in the doorway to Caroline's bedroom, rubbing at her eyes tiredly, while Caroline twists around from where she's sitting to look at her mother. Liz blinks a few times, tiredly. Her eyebrows pull together.

"Caroline?"

Caroline offers a little nod. "Hi, Mom," she croaks, her throat hurting. She hadn't realized how dry her throat was until just now.

Liz pulls off her belt, holding her handcuffs, keys, flashlight, and all the other little things that she carries around with her that Caroline doesn't know about, and lays it down onto Caroline's dresser and walks over to sit down next to Caroline. She looks tired but offers a small smile to her daughter. "Are you okay, sweetie? Why aren't you in school?"

Caroline didn't know how to tell her mom that for reason she doesn't completely remember, she broke every bone in her body last night and when she woke up this morning she was in her neighbor's yard, naked, dirty, and completely out of it. She just has to pray that no one saw her. Well, to be honest, she doesn't even super care about that anymore anyway. She just wants to go back in time to last year. When everything was a lot easier and normal and she had some idea of what she was doing.

Instead, she said something she's probably never said in her life. "I don't feel like going to school today. Is it okay if I stay home?" Caroline pulls the towel off of her head and down onto her lap while looking at her mom. It's good. It seems like Liz was out all night last night and didn't notice that Caroline wasn't even there. Either it was an all-nighter shift or something, or something happened, Caroline doesn't know. But she's relieved that there wasn't going to be any questions, at least, not from Liz.

Liz stares at her, worried etched onto her face. She reaches out, placing a hand on Caroline's. "Are you okay, sweetie?"

Caroline shrugs her shoulders, not able to pull the lie from her throat. "Do you have to go back to work? Can we... can we spend some time together?"

One thing that Caroline does remember clearly through the fog of pain and fear from last night is how much she wished that Liz was there. She wanted nothing more than for Liz to be by her side. There has been this separation, this divide between the two of them for so long. Caroline hates that it took this long for her to really grasp the severity of what her actions were doing to her mother - how much her words and actions hurt her - but she wants to make it better.

She was sure she was going to die last night - unless it was all a dream, breaking all her bones over and over again - but she didn't. She survived. She woke up the next morning, alive. She was aching, but she had enough time to look at her body while she was showering, and she was fine. There weren't any scratches or bruises, or protruding bones.

Caroline is starting to wonder if maybe it was all a dream. She had some sort of panic attack that lead to temporary insanity where she took off her clothes and ran streaking through her hometown.

Well great, now she has something else to keep her up at night. "Sure, sweetie. I'm off for the rest of the day. Give me some time to shower and call the school and we can do something."

"I just want to stay in and watch some movies or something," Caroline says, turning more toward her mom. "I'll order some pizza or something so take your time."

Liz smiles softly, running a hand up and down Caroline's arm. She's tired but seems to be happy. "Alright. I'll be right back." She stands up, grabbing the belt off of Caroline's drawer and heading out of the room, but not before sending one last look back over at Caroline. Her blue eyes seem to see right through Caroline, making her feel transparent. But Before Caroline can even think of anything to try and defend her strange behavior, Liz turns and exits the room.

They had fun, surprisingly enough. Caroline and Liz spent the day sitting in the living room eating snacks and pizza. They made it through two movies before Liz finally fell asleep on the couch next to Caroline. The younger blonde put a blanket around her mother and finished the third movie on her own while Liz slept next to her.

After that, Caroline went back to school the next day and desperately tried to get back into her life. She made sure to fill her plate with anything and everything that she could think of to busy herself. Sitting around that day while she and Liz watched movies gave Caroline enough time to think about how disconnected she's been with her own body. And she's terrified that if she keeps at this, she's never going to find herself again. Bit by bit, pieces of her are being chipped away. She has no idea when it started or what caused it exactly but she's terrified by what it's doing.

So she throws herself back into her life. She keeps her head down, avoiding everyone's eyes except for... well, Tiki. Tiki has been her right-hand lady these last few weeks. Usually, Tiki helps out with the extracurricular activities and they are Cheer together, but Tiki has been there. These last few weeks, when it feels like Bonnie and Elena are slipping further away from her, she's had Tiki there, even if it's only peripherally. Caroline finds comfort in having her there. She's not Bonnie or Elena, but she's wonderful in her own right.

Caroline is thankful for her being there, even if she's not doing it intentionally.

Caroline makes sure never to be anywhere alone. She's so utterly terrified of being alone that she's doing everything she can to not be alone. All the extracurricular activities she can, hanging out with anyone who will ask. And when she didn't have anyone actively asking to hang out with her. She would sit in the Grill, amongst the people, doing homework or planning out the next this or the next that.

And it really helps her. She keeps her head down, vanishing into the crowd, and is able to forget - even if it is only slightly - all the terribly scary things that lurk inside her mind can be crammed down into a little box that she could shove up against the wall in her mind that hides all the scary stuff behind it.

Even sitting alone in her room was getting to become scary. Nightmares of times she doesn't remember coupled with this terrible smell that she can't seem to find. She doesn't eat in her room, at all. She ended up looking around all of her trashcans for the smell. Then cleaned her bathroom. Then she just pulled out all of her clothes and washed all of them. She sprayed down her room and got an air freshener in there.

She stopped smelling it for a bit.

After the excitement of the cougar being found - the animal that had been attacking everyone - people were quick to move on to the Founder's Day Ball. It's one of the more extravagant events of the year. Not that Mystic Falls is ever lacking in events of any sort, but people like to celebrate the founding of their beloved little town.

Caroline wasn't sure what to wear to the Founder's Day Ball, even though she spent more time than necessary thinking about it. A small part of her wanted desperately to go and get a new dress, something to help her feel better. She knows that material possessions weren't going to actually make her feel any better about anything that's happening to her, but she was hoping it would. That somehow a new dress would make her a new person with an entirely different person. It would just make all of her problems go away.

It won't, obviously. But she spent more than a moment naively hoping so.

And yet in the hours leading up to it, Caroline was staring into her closet, debating on cute and flowy, classy and elegant, or pretty and conservative, Caroline realized at that moment, aside from the utter terror of being alone for a moment to try on dresses, that she wanted to disappear. She immersed herself in all of these activities and these people not solely because she was scared to be alone, but because this was the easiest way to vanish. In a crowd of people.

Once she realized that, Caroline knew that her dress was going to be pretty and conservative. The more skin that was covered, the better. The thought of even an inch of skin outside of her face, hands, and feet showing made her feel vulnerable. It was silly, obviously, but she felt it strongly. The dress had some sleeves, which helped, even if they weren't a lot. They were tiny strips of fabric, but they still helped. Caroline probably looked strange in her floor-length cream-colored dress and a simple half-up, half-down hairstyle.

Caroline of last year would be horrified at how simple she looked. How plain. Light make-up, no jewelry. Caroline, a fashionista by nature, would cringe at the sight of herself now. She didn't look horrible. She just didn't look like Caroline.

But she's not the same person she was last year. She wasn't the same person she was six months ago. She wasn't the same person she was when school started. It feels like she is such a different person now. She doesn't feel like herself anymore. She feels like there isn't a single piece of her that isn't somehow fractured or broken.

Caroline made sure to support a wall throughout the party, looking around the room at all the party-goers. For most of the night, she was fine with simply standing around, just observing, until she saw him. Dressed up all dapper and styled up handsome. He was bright and shining and radiant.

And Caroline was dull. She was dull and colorless.

In becoming brighter and more iridescent, Damon Salvatore stole her color. Her light. And he broke her to pieces and made her no more than a foot tall. Over the course of just a few weeks, he stole all of the brightness and vibrancy from her. He's a dead man that looks so alive, and she's a living woman who couldn't be more lifeless. He's fine, and she's... she's a wreck. In elevating himself, she has been lowered into a deep dark pit.

Caroline felt the panic swirling around inside of herself as she carefully extracts herself from the wall, waiting for his bright, clear blue eyes to pass over her without seeing her, before running away. Thankfully she drove separately from Liz, so she was able to throw herself into her car and drive away as fast as possible. Caroline didn't say goodbye to anyone and no one realized that she was gone.

It wasn't enough that Damon Salvatore stole her memories, her feelings, her safety, her mind. He had to steal all of the small fragments of her too. He stole every little piece of her until there was nothing but scraps and threads left. Nothing important. Nothing palpable. Nothing real. It wasn't enough that Damon ruined her life with all the dark and twisty things that existed behind the wall. He had to ensure she would have no life to live for after he was done. And to make it all worse, he haunts her. Every moment of every day. She sees him. She hears him. She is terrified of him.

And he will never leave her alone, even though he has long since left her behind. She keeps him with her now, and she has no idea how to make it stop.

Caroline keeps her head down, avoiding anyone with any sort of drama in any capacity. She goes to Cheer, works hard on school work, and charity events - like Sexy Suds - and focuses on things she can control. She goes to school, does loads of extra credit, helps out the teachers and faculty, even offers her free time to anyone and everyone who will take her. She volunteers to help out Mrs. Lockwood in all of her many different things ranging from planning events for the town, to the Historical Societies many whatever that they do. She also goes t help out her mom at the police station doing just about anything.

Caroline is exhausted; emotionally, mentally, but mostly physically. She's worn down, but her relationship with her mother has never been better. So at least there is a plus there.

But despite how tired her body is, every night she is plagued with nightmares. Things - scary things - from beyond the wall that pushes at it, threateningly. She gets flashes of sounds and images from things she doesn't want to remember. Not just scary things from beyond the wall either, there is also that nightmare. Her weird sleepwalking where she woke up naked outside.

Her room still has this horrible, distinctive smell! Like... rot and iron. But she can't find it anywhere. It's driving her insane and she can't stay in the room if she has to keep smelling it past her air freshener. Which she can, at least faintly.

While she's in the middle of ignoring that, she tries again to reach out to Bonnie and Elena. Bonnie has been a hundred different flavors of weird. She would talk out of one side of her mouth about how she's a psychic and her grams was teaching her more and more about herself. Caroline was excited to get little bitty pieces of information from Bonnie that she was denied earlier, making her feel more like herself than she has in a long time like somehow she was slowly becoming the Caroline that she used to be before it all. Then, suddenly, it would change. Not always in the middle of the conversation, sometimes when they pick it up again, but it usually just becomes something that Caroline wouldn't understand. That it was "nothing, really".

And another crack would appear somewhere across Caroline's body, so small she would only feel it for a moment.

While Elena has been a hundred different shades of weird. Going from one moment wanting to reach out to her so that they can all get together and do something fun, like the good old days - which brought Caroline to actual tears streaming down her face as she sobbed in her bedroom after seeing that text message - to the night being lukewarm at best with Elena and Bonnie both being distracted and the night ending early because they've either run out of things to talk about or were so in their head they couldn't focus.

To the next moment, where she's distracted from all angles by just about everything. Stefan this, Stefan that. Jeremy and Vicki this, Jeremy and Vicki that. Something weird is going on with Stefan. Jeremy is doing drugs. Jeremy is doing Vicki. Tyler is being an asshole to Jeremy. Matt is a great guy who looks like he's still pining. Stefan isn't answering phone calls or texts. Something's going on. Something's not right.

And Elena's life practically revolved around Stefan. Stefan and Damon.

Caroline's anxiety over the month has gotten so bad that whenever she even offers Damon more than a simple, terrifying but fleeting thought, she feels these horrible tremors build-up across her body and the need to throw up almost always punching her in the gut. When she sees him, her knees clack together so swiftly all she can do is run away and cry.

The nightmares don't help. They make life so much harder.

She keeps seeing it in her mind. The forest, the dirt, the animals scurrying in the underbrush. She can feel the cold night air through her hair, smell the earthly smells of the forest, and even hear the sounds of dogs howling against the trees. Accompanying all of those sounds, beneath it all, is broken, terrified sobbing accompanied by the horrible cracking of bones.

The bright, blazing full moon glaring down at her. Bathing her in its light.

And she kept having that nightmare. Again and again and again, every night, until it happened in reverse once again.

She had stayed late working on a new Cheer routine at the school gym until night. Ran through it about a hundred times, perfecting it alone in the school gym until the janitor had to insist that she head home, that it was late enough. She piled back into her car after the really long day, and sat there in the darkness, rubbing at her face, exhausted, wanting nothing more than to sleep but this familiar feeling of ants beneath her skin that she's been getting these last few days.

She sat in the darkness of her car, without turning it on, long enough for her to fall asleep. It felt like for only a moment, her eyes were closed before she woke up with a jerk. Her skin hot with waves rolling across every inch of her. Her hands start to shake and she pushes her car door open and falls out of it onto the concrete parking lot. It's pitch blackout and the moon glares down at her.

And then everything is breaking. Her arms, her legs, her spine, her ribs. Everything across her body quivers and breaks, as she lies there, screaming and crying. She vomits, violently and almost rolls into it as she writhes in pain.

This is just like last time. It's just like that other dream... that nightmare. Unless it wasn't. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't just a stress-induced fever dream. It was a real thing. But.. how can she trust herself? She's letting the broken pieces of her life shatter onto the pavement. She's letting all the scary, confusing things fall behind this massive wall all because she's not strong enough to handle the big stuff, especially now that each itty, bitty, tiny action destroys her just a tiny bit more each time.

She has to know if it's true. She has to know that it was real. She can't trust her own mind. She just has to know.

Through the cracking and breaking and splintering, Caroline managed to wiggle her phone out of her pocket and hit the record button. The quality is probably terrible, and the light from her car is dim, but hopefully, it'll be enough. She clumsily manages to place it up against the side of the driver's seat and hopefully point it toward herself. She has to know, and this is the only way she'll be able to trust it. She has to be able to see with her own two eyes. She won't be able to trust what she knows. She thought it was real when it happened - that she was going to die - but as time went on and there were absolutely no repercussions for whatever it was that happened to her, she was slowly convincing herself that what she thought happened... hadn't actually happened.

The breaking and splintering bones, the hot waves across her skin, the churning of her stomach is enough to make her want to throw up again. Her anxiety is making her shake harder than the sobbing is. She tries desperately to hold herself together, briefly wondering if she'll just be able to keep tense enough that whatever is happening to her will simply pass, but doing that makes her puke again.

Then her bones are rapidly resetting into a different shape, just like before. And once more, her screaming falls silent.

When Caroline opened her eyes, the first thing that she noticed was how cold she was. How absolutely freezing she was. The shaking of her body is what woke her up. The cold hard concrete is pressed into her shoulder, hip, and along her left leg. She opens her eyes to see that it's still dark out, and the light in her car has turned off, as well as the annoying beeping that the car door was open.

She shakes hard, trying to orient herself as she slowly sits up, noticing that once more she's naked, but this time she's surrounded by shredded clothes. Her gym shorts and t-shirt were torn completely into long strips and left half blown away in the icy breeze.

Caroline crawls to her feet, reaching into her darkened car to dig through her gym bag to find her clothes from earlier in the day that she never bothered to change back into. There was relieved that she had the forethought to not just leave her bag in her locker. She was going to bring them home to wash, as she does every other day, so she's happy that today was that day.

She dresses quickly in her t-shirt, shorts, and the sweatshirt that's been in her car forever, trying not to think about whether it was clean or not in favor of the warmth that it provides. Caroline sits down in her car for a second, just staring down at her shaking hands. She can't write it off this time. She's so much more alert than last time. The cold is somehow helping her focus. She's just lucky she's still somehow in the parking lot. The last time this happened she ended up teleporting from somewhere in the woods to a lot closer to her house.

Then, Caroline remembers her phone. She reaches down, grabbing her phone from where it was propped up against the seat, and looks at it. The screen has since turned off and it's almost one in the morning. It's been about two and a half hours since her... attack? Whatever that was. Hopefully, her phone was still holding enough battery or even saved the video, she wasn't exactly of clear mind while all of that was happening.

Thankfully, her screen lit up notifying her that her phone had to stop recording because there wasn't enough space on it for the size of the video. She went into her files and pulls up the video, seeing that her phone had only one bar of battery power left.

Caroline closes the door and turns on her car, quickly blasting the hot air in an attempt to warm up. She's going to be sick after this, she just knows it.

The video quality is horrible, just like Caroline suspected that it was going to be but she was able to make out enough.

Caroline saw herself writhing on the concrete in pain, sobbing and begging for Liz. She saw herself break bones all across her body. They break, twist around, then snap back into place. Over and over again. If Caroline had anything in her stomach right now, she would probably have vomited again - as she did in the video a second later. Caroline had to cover her eyes, push down nausea and dry heaving. She sucks in a few breaths before watching, in abject horror, as her body quickly breaks apart and puts itself back together in the shape of a dog.

A huge freaking dog.

She shakes out her massive coat, moaning in pain that sounds half-human, half-animal, and completely horrible. Before collapsing onto her side. And that's where she stayed, unmoving for the next minute and three seconds of the video.

Caroline drove home in absolute silence. Not able to even bother to turn on some music or anything. Her mind is just whirling uncontrollably. A dog. She turned into a freaking dog! What... what in the world? How...? How does that even happen? When...? What the hell?

Caroline's mind is racing, trying to piece everything together while trying to ignore the shaking in her body that has nothing to do with how cold she still feels while the tiny threads of her sanity finally start severing completely. What the hell just happened? Why is this happening to her? What is even happening? How come she didn't know that she could turn into a huge freaking dog? Why? Why was she a monster?

In her mind's eye, Caroline sees gnashing teeth. She smells blood. She tastes iron on her tongue. There is a ghostly pain to her fists. She hears screaming in her ears. So loud, so heartbreaking, so intense.

"Forget..." a ghostly whisper in the back of her head, somewhere within the foundation of the wall. "Forget all of this..."

And she wanted to. If she tried hard enough, it too would vanish behind the wall in her mind where all the scary stuff hides. But that would only be momentary. And She's not sure she would fully forget it. She remembered bits and pieces of it from last time, but this time is much clearer. Maybe it was far too late to try and hide from it.

But she's terrified. She can't do this alone. She's not strong enough. She needs help. She desperately needs someone to help her. She's so utterly alone and terrified and the pieces that she had carefully been keeping together so delicately, are turning to dust inside of her. She's not even sure there's a way to repair any of the damage done to her now. She's never going to be the same. Not after all that happened. All the scary things that sit on the edge of her memories, clawing away at her mind, and all the things so compacted into this small box and throw on the other side of the wall that calls out to her but nothing more.

They are getting harder to ignore, even as the waves are crashing over her head -

No! No waves. No... no compu -

Caroline chokes a sob, spotting a familiar face slowly exiting The Grill. Her dark eyebrows pull together as she twists around slightly to speak with a man dressed in a very impressive dark suit who was leaving the building behind her. Caroline quickly pulled into a parking spot, not even offering herself the chance to wonder why she was out and about in the dead of night when they have school in the morning and not home asleep.

Caroline was out. And she didn't super care either.

She could feel herself crumbling away. She could feel herself dying. The parts of her that made her Caroline Forbes, were being eradicated inside of her own body every second. She needed help. Without help, she will die. She will fall over onto the concrete and her heart will stop. She can't keep going like this. She needs help and if she doesn't get it right this second...

There will be no saving her. Every piece of Caroline will vanish into dust.

Caroline barely managed to turn her car off before she's racing through the streets, trying to find her friend. Now that the animal that's been attacking people has been killed - the mountain lion - more and more people are out wandering the streets. Even though it's past midnight.

Caroline plows through some people, barely able to apologize over her wheezing and dry sobbing. Each step is like more of her turning to dust. Behind her eyelids, she can see gnashing teeth and long claws. But she can also hear screaming. Terrible, horrible screaming. A man screaming. Begging her to stop. To not kill -

"Elena!" Caroline sobs, spotting her best friend walking next to the suited man a few paces ahead of her.

At first, Elena doesn't bother to even turn to look at her, and Caroline is once more reminded of this great distance that has been separating them for a long time. Since the beginning of the year. Or maybe since long before that. So long, so steady, that Caroline simply hadn't noticed it until now. But she doesn't care about that. She needs help. She needs someone to help her save her own life. She can feel herself slipping away. Even if they couldn't be best friends anymore - for whatever reason - Caroline knew that Elena would never let her knowingly suffer. Elena was too great, too wonderful, to do that.

"Elena," Caroline sobs, falling to her knees, not even caring about the people casting her weird looks as they walk by. "Please, Elena, please."

Then, Elena turns. Her dark eyes hone in on Caroline's face. There is confusion at first, her eyebrows pulling together as she tries to make sense of what she's seeing. She casts a look over at the man next to her, who has also turned to look at Caroline with furrowed brows, before looking around as if trying to locate who Caroline was talking about.

The dismissal was like a white-hot poker to the chest. Caroline grips at her chest with one hand while reaching out to Elena with the other, begging through globs of tears and broken sobs, "Please, Elena. Please. I'm begging. Please don't walk away again. I need you, I need you so bad."

Her eyes blur up and she has to bring her other hand to her chest, feeling like it was tearing apart. This agony is so much worse than when her bones were breaking. This abandonment, this dismissal. Caroline can't do this. She can't feel like this anymore. She's being torn to shreds and then to dust. She can't. She can't. She's falling apart. She can't hold the pieces together anymore. She's going to... She's going to...

A hand settles on her cheek. Then on the other. The tenderness, the softness, is enough to pull Caroline out of the blackness in her mind. She opens her blurry eyes to hone in on Elena's soft, compassionate face a few inches away. She runs her thumbs under Caroline's eyes. It takes Caroline a second of staring into her focused, dark eyes to hear the soft sound of Elena hushing her broken sobs.

A soft, "shhh", as she wipes away Caroline's tears.

Caroline starts to pull herself together a bit, feeling stronger from the strength shining in Elena's eyes. She's never seen a look like this in Elena before. Like the whole world could explode around her and she would stand strong. She wouldn't bend or bow or break. She was unstoppable. She was strong enough to stand against it all without even batting an eyelash.

She looked like Elena, but there was something distinctly different about her.

Caroline's mind tried to grasp something, tried to hold on to the fact that something about Elena was so different but then Caroline saw herself in the reflection of Elena's eyes, and a little voice in the back of her head openly wondered how long it's been since she's seen herself in Elena's eyes. How long has it been since the two of them were really able to spend any real-time with one another? How long has it been since Elena has really looked at her? It's been so long that Caroline can't even begin to wonder when the last time really was.

And then it hit her. It hit her so hard and so fast that Caroline lost her breath. She just sat there, on the sidewalk, staring into the face of her best friend, realizing with horror that somehow... somehow she could tell that what she knew was true. Her eyes tell her no. Her brain tells her no. But she knows. She knows that she knows, but she has no idea how.

"You're..." Caroline whispers, staring into those big, beautiful brown eyes. "You're not Elena. You... You look just like her... but you aren't her."


	7. Interesting

The Elena look-alike stares back at Caroline with wide, pretty brown eyes so painfully familiar but Caroline is more certain now than she was when she initially said it. This person, while without a doubt a literal spitting image of Elena, is most definitely not Caroline's childhood best friend.

But damn, they could be twins.

"I-I'm so sorry," Caroline hears herself say, trying desperately to get ahold of herself. She feels like a fool, crying like that in front of everyone. Thankfully no one she outwardly recognizes or knows saw it, she supposes is the better way to say it, seeing as that girl looks exactly like Elena. She wants to sink into the ground and disappear forever. That would solve all of her problems.

"It's... fine..." Not-Elena says slowly, narrowing her brown eyes slightly in thought. There is a little tilt to her head that looks so much like something that Elena does that it physically hurts Caroline. She wanted so badly to talk to Elena, to finally bear her heart out to one of her best friends after suffering for so long in silence. This was sort of the last straw, she was so panicked by what happened that when she saw Elena, she finally found the courage to say something and now to learn that it isn't even Elena has left her emotionally, and physically, drained.

Caroline shakes her head, hand clutching at her shirt as she tries to work her way through all of the emotions swirling around inside of her. "No, I... um, should have checked to make sure that... that you were who I, um, thought that you were..." If she could sink into the ground in shame now, she would.

Not-Elena stares at her, curiously. She purses her lips a bit with a slow half glance at the dark-haired man next to her before looking back over at Caroline. "We must look a lot alike to have been mistaken for one another. Especially since she seems to be a... close friend."

Caroline pushes herself to her feet, rubbing away at her eyes. The weight of the night - or the last few weeks - is wearing down on her more heavily now than it has in a while. She's feeling especially vulnerable today. Probably because she just turned into a freaking dog! How is she supposed to explain that to anyone? Let alone own up to her new reality? How could any of this be happening? To her?

"You two are, um, completely identical. I almost couldn't tell the difference..." Caroline mumbles, rubbing harder at her eyes. She pulls her hand away to see spots in her vision. Talking is good. Talking helps make her feel just a tiny bit better. She doesn't have to focus on herself or her life while she's talking. Something else to occupy the mind.

Not-Elena nods slowly, standing up too, pushing long curly brown hair over her shoulder. Elena doesn't curl her hair - at least not unless it's a special occasion. And it's got to be very special.

"Are you okay?" Not-Elena asks, crossing her arms over her chest and giving Caroline another look that makes the shorter brunette look like a bomb could go off next to her and she wouldn't bat a single mile-long eyelash at it. Caroline envies her incredible strength.

"I'm okay," Caroline lies, looking away from the strong woman in front of her, afraid that the truth would be shining in her eyes. "I'm just..." Caroline hesitates. She rubs at her forehead, not caring if she leaves a big red mark there. She's dreading offering a single thought more to the terrible night that she just had. She can't believe that actually happened to her. "I'm just having a really bad day. I'm sorry for freaking you out."

Not-Elena raises an eyebrow. "Surprised me? Yes. Freaked me out? No such luck. Believe me, I've seen and heard a lot worse than someone calling me the wrong name." She rolls her eyes before reaching out to take Caroline's arm and leading her over to one of the nearby tables outside of the restaurant they are in front of, and nods for her to sit, not looking as if she was giving the taller blonde an option.

Caroline practically falls into the seat feeling exhausted beyond bone-deep. It permeates through her entire body, throbbing like a heartbeat. A part of her wants to run back to her car, speed home, crawl into bed, and never leave it again.

But once more, she's scared. She's scared to be alone with her thoughts. Even now, the image of her turning into a dog with all of her bones breaking in order for her to do that keep replaying behind her eyelids every time she closes her eyes for too long. Just thinking about it makes her just want to cry. It won't fix anything, though. It won't make anything better. But at least she knows how to cry on command so that would give her some semblance of control. Not that she has to try hard if she wants to cry. But she won't of course. She feels weak enough as it is, the last thing she needs is for her own tears to steal more of the pitiable amount of power that she has left.

The suited man holds out the chair for Not-Elena before lowering himself into the last available one at the table. Caroline offers him a curious look, having forgotten that he was there. He's been quiet for their entire exchange. No doubt trying to wrap his mind around the insanity that Caroline has just introduced into their lives. But he's looking between them with a perfectly impassive look on his face, taking this with simple grace.

"That's Elijah," Not-Elena says, pulling Caroline's eyes back over to her. She nods to the dark-eyed man before offering a charming smile that would be too sultry, too domineering for Elena but somehow looked perfect on her literal double. "And my name is Katherine."

Caroline flushes, realizing that she was blabbering on to these strangers after having awkwardly called out to them in the middle of the street, and she never even gave them her name. It's like she's forgotten how to be a normal person these last few weeks. So much of her is being chipped away, bit-by-bit, that she's even forgetting basic manners.

"Oh. Um, I'm Caroline," Caroline says, pushing some wild blonde hair from her face. She must look like an absolute train wreck. What a first impression this turned out to be. "Sorry, I'm just having a bad day."

"Caroline," Katherine says easily like they have known each other forever and once more it's hard to imagine that this isn't Elena. "I know what a bad day looks like. And hun, I hate to say it, but you look like your bad day has stretched on for a few months. It looks bad, trust me, I've had bad decades, so this isn't the worst I've seen. But it's still pretty bad. No offense."

Caroline shrugs. She can't exactly be upset by it. She has been having a terrible time lately coupled with the fact that tonight alone, she went from human to dog to human again. If she didn't look terrible, she would be surprised beyond words. So she can't exactly be mad. Even if she wants to be. It shouldn't be like this. It shouldn't have to be like this for her. She shouldn't have to feel so utterly alone in her own hometown surrounded by her friends and family. It shouldn't be this hard to escape this negative bog that's been following her around.

This isn't the way this year was supposed to go.

"None taken. I didn't mean to freak you guys out. Tonight has officially sucked about a million times more than justifiably acceptable," Caroline says, rubbing at her forehead again. She offers a thin, mirthless smile to Katherine, trying to stem the stream of darkness clouding her mind. "I think I just need to complain."

Katherine's eyebrow quirks up a bit as she crosses her arms over her chest and leans back in her seat. "Well, you haven't said much aside from how sorry you are and that you were having a bad night. So go on." She gives a little nod for Caroline to proceed.

Honestly, it's jarring. She looks like Elena's identical twin, and yet they are so completely different from one another. Not just in their overall appearance - or style is probably a better way to say it - but in their personalities too.

Caroline has never for a moment thought that Elena was weak. With the tragic death of her parents driving off the Wickery Bridge while she was in the car with them..?

No.

Caroline can't imagine that level of pain that she would carry with her constantly. The strength that one would need...

Katherine though... She looks like her world could blow up around her and she wouldn't bat an eyelash. Caroline strives to one day be as strong as either of them. Especially since Caroline feels anything but strong these last few weeks.

Caroline hesitates, wondering if she really was about to unload all of her dirty laundry on a couple of complete strangers right now. But Katherine looks exactly like Elena. And Caroline misses her friends. She feels so alone recently, which is mostly her fault for not reaching out, so she feels like she was ready to bear her heart to Elena but now she can without actually having to own up to Elena. Elena's pitying eyes. Elena's sad voice. Elena's sympathy. Elena's empathy.

Elena is in pain too. Probably more pain than Caroline is. How... how can Caroline pile onto that? How can Caroline top her already terrible habits of being a subpar friend at best?

Things have been so weird between Bonnie, Elena, and Caroline since school started back up again. Caroline isn't certain what she did but it's not getting better and she's been too terrified to talk about it. Terrified that Bonnie and Elena will realize how much better off they are without Caroline holding them back and leave her forever. Then Caroline will be completely and utterly alone. And she definitely can't handle that.

Caroline won't be able to hold on any longer if she's left alone. She will have nothing left. Damon will have officially destroyed her.

Even now she isn't entirely sure she wants to talk about it. Despite hating how much it's been weighing her down, she still feels as though speaking about it would give it more power over her than it already has. Never mind the fact that she doesn't even know what to really say. All of it is confusing and most of it hides behind the brick wall in her mind. That wall is meant to keep her safe, now she doesn't know how to live without it. It's a safe place to store all of the scary, unknowns in her life.

"Caroline?"

The young blonde turns to look at the twin of her best friend. Vulnerably, Caroline says, "Ever since school started nothing has been going the way that it should. People are..." she racks her hands through her hair, feeling her anxiety spiking the more that she's thinking about it. She glances around to make sure no one is listening to them, not that she would know how to put into words the things that she has hidden behind the wall. "People are scarier now than ever before. My friends are acting strange and drifting apart. There's suddenly a bunch of animal attacks by a recently caught mountain lion that literally killed my history teacher, but we don't talk about that whole weird debacle..."

Caroline drops her head into her hands, trying not to turn too much of her attention to the wall in her mind, to the scary things that lurk on the other side scratch, scratch, scratching on its surface, begging her to come closer. To give in and just accept the secrets that lie beyond. Just thinking about it, even if a small part of her wants to see what lies beyond, a voice whispers in the back of her mind, telling her to forget and it sounds so similar to St-

"Caroline?" Katherine says slowly, her expression falling flat as she stares through her long lashes at the blonde. "What was so weird about the mountain lion?"

"It only hunts at night..." Caroline says softly, eyes squeezing shut as the secrets beyond the wall in her mind beckon her forward with more ferocity, begging her to remember. She knows that she should, that something important lies beyond but she's scared. So scared. "But it wasn't a mountain lion. It wasn't. I saw it. I saw him. I felt it. It was... he... I felt..." Caroline grips at her throat as weeks' worth of silent screams jam it shut making it hard for her to breathe. The wall in her mind starts to crumble a bit, widdling away and something slips past her lips in a terrified whisper, "Vampire..." Then she sees him in her mind's eye. She sees midnight black hair, pale skin, flashing fangs, lunging at her throa-

Terrified, Caroline slams the secrets peaking through the cracks into the wall back to the other side, forcing the word to vanish with it. Caroline's not sure how long she's staring vacantly at Katherine before she looks around, blinking rapidly. Her heart is pounding and she knows to be afraid but the exact why behind it slides beneath the wall and out of sight. Caroline rubs at her forehead, standing up.

"I have to go home," Caroline says, head hurting. "I don't... I don't know what..." She shakes her head, flinching at the motion. She looks at Katherine, who crossed her arms over her chest and casts a look at the man next to her - Elijah - who was leaning a bit to one side, rubbing at his lips contemplatively with raised eyebrows before turning her dark eyes back to Caroline. "You should go home too," Caroline says, sounding robotic even to herself. "Bye."

She turns and blacks out. By the time she comes to once more, she's falling into her bed.

Katherine crosses her legs slowly under the table, watching the blonde robotically retreat towards the dark parking lot on the other side of the street, no doubt where her car is parked. Katherine turns to look at the Original next to her, eyebrows ticked up toward her hairline. Elijah is staring at the seat where Caroline was just a few moments before, lost in thought as he runs the pads of his fingers over his lips.

Katherine waits for one breath, two, before commenting half-heartedly, "That was a strange way for compulsion to kick in."

Elijah sucks in a slow breath, contemplative, before shaking his head. "Indeed..."

Katherine blinks slowly, knowing the older man long enough to know that there is something bothering him. Something that he's considering deeply but won't put into words just yet. She stares at the side of his head, waiting for him to say something more, but he just stares at the empty seat in silence, lost to his thoughts. Katherine reaches up to one of her curls, twisting it around her finger slowly.

"You know... there was definitely something off about her. I thought she was human at first but then I got the distinct feeling she wasn't. I know that she isn't a witch, I've been around enough to know a witch when I see one," Katherine says slowly, turning her eyes back over to the Original next to her. "I mean, I've met Rebekah more than once." She narrows her eyes a bit, looking at Elijah. A frown pulls at her lips, which should have gotten her some sort of reaction from the older man. But nothing.

Katherine twists her body to face the Original. She rests her cheek against her fist and stares at him. He blinks slowly as his phone starts to ring in his pocket. Katherine looks down at his pocket, then back at him. Elijah doesn't make any move to go for his phone. The Doppelganger raises her eyebrow, curiously. Yes, Caroline was a little odd, but it's obvious that she's going through something. But she mistook Katherine for her friend, who she said is the exact same as her, which means her doppelganger.

That's the entire reason they came here, so it's good that it didn't take long for them to get a lead. While Caroline was certainly interesting enough with the information she provided - Elena, being the name of her doppelganger - and the fact that she's seen better days, just not recently, but nothing that should be holding Elijah's attention so thoroughly.

At least, not that Katherine can tell.

Katherine doesn't think about it. Doesn't think about the pain in Caroline's voice. The agony, as she called out for Katherine - who she mistook as one of her so called "friends" - while trying desperately to hold herself together. Katherine has seen lots of pathetic and pitiful people in her life, and she herself was one such person from time to time when it just seems like nothing is going right, but it's... hard to see it on others. It's hard to watch someone so young look like she's ripping apart at the seams. Katherine has heard the desperation in Caroline's voice on other people. People who simply couldn't hold out any longer as the terrible keeps mounting.

Katherine remembers being so low when for the briefest, and the darkest, of moments it seemed like the only way to escape the pain and the agony was to die. Katherine felt that when she was disowned by her friends and her family. When her baby was taken from her and she was forced out of her life with absolutely nothing to her name but the clothes on her back. It was traumatic. It was terrible. And for the lowest, darkest moments in her life she wanted to die. She wanted nothing more than for the agony to end, but she couldn't do that.

It took time. Perhaps too long wallowing in that darkness before Katherine learned the truth about herself that kept her going. She wanted to live far more than she wanted to die. It came to her when she was at her absolute lowest. It was a long, arduous road with a lot of peaks and pits along the way, but Katherine made it. Katherine saved her own life. She got up on her two feet and pushed forward. For every singular day that would beat her down, she would own the next two. For every dark thought or shadowed moment, she would spend the next two seeking the light. For every person that cut her deep enough to kill, she found the strength to survive in herself and those that she trusted most in the world.

For those small, unpredictable moments when it seemed like too much, she knew that she always had him to help pull her through the fires if she wasn't strong enough to do it alone.

But Katherine knows that not everyone gets to that point. Katherine understands that for a lot of people, that darkness wins.

Elijah's phone stops ringing and Katherine mumbles, pulling back into herself, "Well, screw whoever that was then."

"Hm?" Elijah glances over at her. "What was that, Katerina?"

Katherine raises her eyebrows, staring at the Original. "Your phone was ringing."

"Oh," he says, disinterested, reaching into his coat pocket to pull out his phone to see who it was. Before he even could say, Katherine's phone starts going off. She pulls her own phone to see who it was.

She sighs and answers it. "Yes?"

"Where is he?"

Katherine sighs again, turning to look at the Original next to her, holding out the phone for him to take, but his mind is still elsewhere. She purses her lips, somewhat annoyed, before pulling her phone back to her ear. "He's not talking to you."

"Any particular reason?"

"I don't know," Katherine says, leaning back in her chair. "Did you make him mad?"

He sighs, which makes Katherine shake her head. "How am I to know? Everything I do seems to upset one sibling or another."

"I am not upset with you, Niklaus," Elijah says, still looking at his phone, disinterested. "Believe it or not, my entire life doesn't revolve around you, my dearly misguided brother."

Katherine and Klaus both scoff at the same time, Katherine can hear the other Original practically roll his eyes. Elijah blinks slowly but doesn't turn his attention to the younger vampire next to him as Klaus says, "You could have fooled me, dear brother."

"Do you want to take the phone or do the two of you prefer to talk through me?" Katherine asks, wiggling her phone toward the Original next to her. "Because as interesting as this is, it actually isn't."

Elijah's lips part, sparing Katherine a glance, but Klaus cuts him off before he can even say anything, "Not at all, Katerina. I'm sure you can fully appraise me of the situation update as good as my brother can." A pause, long enough for Katherine to roll her eyes again. "Go on."

"We made it to Mystic Falls yesterday morning, and we were ultimately unsuccessful in locating the possible Doppelganger until not too long before you called. We don't have a positive ID just yet, but I think we're on to something," Katherine reports, hating when Klaus uses them as if they are part of his spy network. It only just so happened that were the closest people to Mystic Falls when Klaus caught wind of video footage of this little town and caught a glimpse of someone very reminiscent of Katherine herself.

"Think you've found my human doppelganger?" Klaus asks, amused. Katherine can see his smile through the phone.

"Actually I think it's my doppelganger but sure."

Elijah smiles at that, obviously amused where Katherine is getting the sense that Klaus no longer is. Katherine offers the Original next to her a sultry smile in return, which he seems to appreciate.

"Have patience, Niklaus," Elijah says, putting his phone back into his pocket and straightening out his cuffs. "We only just got here. Give us a few days to confirm one way or the other."

"I have been patient, Elijah," Klaus says evenly. "Five hundred years worth. And you know what this means for me, to be able to make more hybrids."

"But it's not the end of the world if you don't," Elijah says sagely. "You have plenty of people on your side, brother. You don't need the hybrids."

"Do you two want to talk to each other?" Katherine offers again, eyebrows raised toward her hairline. Elijah shakes his head again and Katherine has to fight the urge to roll her eyes for the hundredth time today.

"I know I don't need them," Klaus says, stiffly, ignoring Katherine as if she never said anything. "I just want everything that our dearest mother stole from me. That includes making my hybrids. I want all of it. Even if I never make one. I still want the ability to do so."

Katherine glances over at the older of the two of them. Elijah rubs the pads of his fingers together slowly, murmuring, "I understand." Before looking over at Katherine and holding out his hand for the phone. Katherine passes it over to him, curiously, as he puts the phone to his ear and says, "There is something else peculiar here, brother. Something I wanted to run past you since we are on the subject. I think we found someone of interest."

"Someone interesting to you, brother?" Klaus says easily. "This I have to hear."

"I can't be certain as of yet, but I think we've come across a young werewolf," Elijah says, straightening up in his seat.

Katherine stares at him, frowning. Caroline? There was definitely something off about her, but was it really that she was a werewolf? Katherine has been around one or two and is starting to be able to recognize them. But the last time she's seen a werewolf - aside from the fact that it was old and dying - was over two hundred years ago. Keeping in mind she wasn't even looking for one, but she knew that werewolves were a rare breed. Caroline, though, didn't strike her as a werewolf. Katherine knows all about them. She has to. They are the natural enemy of the Vampire.

Which reminds her. If there are werewolves here in Mystic Falls, she's going to have to get back to the hotel and get her vial that she always keeps with her. A gift from Klaus. Just in case.

"You think it's a young werewolf?" Klaus asks, curiously. "Odd for you to be unable to tell, dear brother."

Elijah rubs at his lips with his free hand for a moment, considering. "It might be because we don't see a lot of freshly cursed werewolves, or lonely ones at that, because I'm not so sure that she has a pack if she is a werewolf, but she also appeared before us either at the end of the apex of the moon or just after it passed. But she's also showing signs of being under compulsion. Or, at the very least, under the influence of it," Elijah amends.

Klaus is quiet for a long moment, considering carefully. That was odd. Katherine hadn't considered it. Witch or werewolf, it didn't matter, neither should be affected by compulsion, yet Caroline was definitely showing signs of it. Not only is there a werewolf in town, but also a vampire too. Well, Mystic Falls is nothing if not interesting.

"Things are starting to get interesting," Klaus says, as if able to read Katherine's mind, before hanging up the phone.

Caroline pulls herself out of bed a few days later and heads for the shower. She's been careful, keeping an eye on herself. She's starting to figure out that whatever it is that happens to her has this strange feeling washing over her a few days in advance. It's like the feeling of ants beneath her skin. She also gets more and more anxious.

Not that she isn't constantly anxious, but still.

Caroline couldn't help herself the next morning and went looking around to see if she could find Katherine, but was unable to. With all the insane things going on, Caroline was starting to wonder if she was going crazy. As much as she would like to write off that her turning into a dog never happened, the video is saved onto her phone and she watches it often to remind herself that it's real. Although unfortunately, it's harder with Katherine. Someone who looks exactly like Elena but isn't her? Someone no one ever knew about?

Elena would have told her if she had a twin sister. Especially since Katherine didn't seem all that surprised that Caroline confused them. Maybe Caroline is so starved to have someone pay attention to her, to acknowledge her worries and her fears, to have someone there for her, that she's dreaming of someone like Katherine to help her.

At this point, Caroline can't even trust her own mind anymore. She has turned into a dog and back. And Caroline can't exactly say that she is the pinnacle of mental health. She hasn't been for a long time, if she ever was.

Caroline sits in the shower after having washed her hair and body far longer than she needed to. It took Liz, who was home in the morning when she woke up for once, knocking on her bathroom door to alert her that she was going to be late for school if she didn't get out soon and let her know that her basket of clothes were on her bed to put away when she got home for school. Normally Caroline would have tried to be independent and tell her mom to leave her clothes alone and she would just handle it alone, but things have been different. And it's these small little acts that for some reason help Caroline hold on. There is still someone out there that loves her.

Caroline gets out of the shower and wraps up in her towel, walking into her bedroom to find some clothes to change into. She's going to have a long day with Tiki for a fundraiser at the school gym after classes end, so she's going to need to be comfortable. She puts on some jeans and t-shirt and a jacket over it. She stuffs her feet into some sneakers before walking back into her bathroom to brush her teeth and brush through her damp hair, trying to work up the strength to put an ounce of care into her appearance, but she can't.

With greater difficulty than is fair, Caroline pulls her hair up into a messy ponytail, pulling loose a few strands so they frame her face to fake effort while unable to bring herself to do anything else. She can't bring herself to put on any makeup aside from mascara and when she heads back into her room she wars with herself before putting on a few rings and a necklace that Elena gave her a week ago, after telling her to never take it off. Caroline thought it was cute but wasn't sure why she shouldn't ever take it off but Elena ran off before she could ask.

Caroline was choked up though, to get a gift from her friend, even if it was out of the blue.

She had to make it look like she was trying to look basic and not because the thought of putting any ounce of effort into her appearance sucks the very life out of her. Tiki would say something if she didn't at least try. She puts her birthstone earrings - opals - into her ears before sitting down on the edge of her bed, exhausted. She's done hardly anything and yet her body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. She drops her head into her hands, trying to encourage herself to get up and move.

She's not sure how long she sat there, unmoving, before Liz pokes her head into the room. "Hey, sweetie, do you want to try and grab some food before going to school?"

Caroline stands up, quickly, forcing a smile across her lips before turning to her mom. "No, thanks. I'm not hungry. I'm going to head out. Don't forget the fundraiser is after school. Come and show your support."

Liz stares at her, frowning slightly before nodding slowly. "Okay... but try to get something to eat. I haven't seen you eat anything in a while..."

"I'm fine," Caroline laughs, throwing in an eyeroll that took up half of her reserved energy. "I eat at school."

"Okay..." Liz says softly, in disbelief, "if you say so."

Caroline grabs her purse, slinging it over her arm and heading for the door. She kisses Liz's cheek, telling her that she loved her before heading for the front door, smile falling from her face before she hits the welcome mat.

After school, Caroline and her minions are setting up for the fundraiser. Caroline is leaning on one of the tables as the flurry of motion happens around her, focusing on the clipboard and check list that she has prepared. Her eyes are skimming her notes in the margins, squinting and hating herself for not finding the strength to have rewritten everything before today. She hated how disorganized it looked and wanted to pull her hair from her head but she just couldn't find the energy to rewrite everything, which is so unlike her.

Caroline has to force herself not to just toss down the clipboard and walk away in stress to her bed and never leave it again.

"Hello, love."

Caroline glances over to her side to see a handsome young man leaning against the table next to her, arms crossed over his chest with styled messy brown hair, dark brown eyes and a smirk that has no doubt slayed a hundred women.

A normal Caroline reaction would be to turn to goo at the attention of such an intimidatingly handsome young man who is just about her age, but she isn't normal Caroline anymore. Normal Caroline was caught and killed a long time ago. Instead, Caroline is reminded, painfully so, about the last time a handsome, strange man approached her out of the blue. What he did. How he hurt her. How he killed her.

So instead, Caroline wants to sink into the ground and disappear forever.

Caroline straightens up, holding her clipboard to her chest like a shield between them, her eyes flickering around the busy gym. No one is looking at them. No one is paying them any attention. But if she screamed, they would all know. That comforts her, but only minutely.

Caroline swallows thickly, trying to keep herself steady and her knees from knocking together in terror. Her mouth is dry and the fear must have shown on her face because the young man uncrosses his arms and holds up his hands for her to see.

"Calm yourself, love. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm a friend of Katherine's," he says, his voice low and smooth. "I'm Kol."

Caroline blinks a few times, trying to reign in her terror. She sucks in a few breaths, stepping back to put a bit of space between them, relieved when he doesn't move from where he is. His face falls impassive, but his eyes stare through her, like she's made of glass. Caroline remembers Katherine. She remembers that night, but it's like she's seeing it through a dream. She's spent the last few days trying to convince herself that it wasn't real - that she didn't meet someone who looked exactly like Elena, but it seems it really did happen.

"You..." Caroline croaks. She takes a moment to steady herself before asking softly, "You know Katherine?"

Kol nods slowly, offering a look like he's seeing something terribly damaged. Like one would look at a wounded animal. Caroline feels horribly exposed. She doesn't like it. She wants to believe that any friend of Katherine would be nice to her, but she doesn't know Katherine. One small moment of kindness - which was really just basic human kindness, nothing spectacular - was enough to make Caroline want to believe. But that's stupid, of course.

Caroline would be stupid to blindly trust anyone. She knows all too well what happens when she trusts the wrong person. Or people.

"I do," Kol says. "She asked me to check in to see how you are. But it seems that instead of helping you, I've made you worse. I'm so sorry, love." He genuinely looks sympathetic, and maybe even a bit apologetic as he studies her closely, and Caroline can't help but feel bad. He hasn't done anything to her. She shouldn't be so cold.

So long as he stays right there and not come any closer, the least she can do is talk.

"I'm okay," Caroline says slowly. "You just... surprised me, is all."

Kol levels her with a disbelieving look that makes her feel tiny. "Yes, well, I am sorry for... um, surprising you, love," he says placating, despite the look on his face. She could lie all she wanted, he didn't believe her. And it was unnerving to see. Someone she didn't know. Someone who only knows of her from someone she spent maybe ten minutes with, can see through her so easily. For weeks, everyone who has asked her if she was okay, believed her when she lied right to their faces.

But not Kol. Someone she's shared about ten words with.

"It's fine," Caroline says slowly, staring down at her feet, unable to look into his eyes as his burrow through her. "I'm okay. Tell Katherine that I'm fine, but she doesn't have to worry about me. I'm sorry for freaking her out the other night."

Kol scoffs, shaking his head as Caroline glances up at him through her lashes. "Nothing scares Katherine except maybe cheep shoes and a bad hair day. But sure. I'll pass the message along." Not knowing what to say, Caroline looks away again. There is a long, painful silence before Kol shifts to face her, but not move any closer than the space that she's made between them, saying, "Alright, love. I'm here to help. Tell me what to do first."

Caroline jerks her head up, eyebrows pulling together as blue eyes meet brown. "What..?"

Kol's smirk returns full force, brown eyes burrowing into her as he loftily says, "I do love me a good cause. So put me to work. What should I do first?"


End file.
